Amir Khafagy

Amir Khafagy is an award-winning New York City-based journalist. He is currently a Report for America Corps member with Documented. Much of Amir's beat explores the intersections of labor, race, class, immigration, and urban policy.


His writing has been featured in The Guardian, Vice, The New Republic, New York Mag, The City, Bloomberg, Prism, Documented, The Appeal, Dame, The American Prospect, Jacobin, and In These Times. Additionally, Amir has worked as a researcher for the critically acclaimed podcast Serial. 


He has been awarded the 2022 LION Local Journalism Accountability Award, Type Investigations 2021 Ida B. Wells Fellowship, The Sidney Hillman Foundation's Reporting the U.S. Workplace Program, The Newmark J-School 2021 Education Reporting Scholarship, The International Center for Journalists COVID-19 Reporting Award, The New Economics Reporting Fellowship, The Economic Hardship Reporting Grant, The Talk Poverty Writer Workshop Fellowship, The Asian American Writers Workshop Open City Fellowship, and The AARP Freelance Fellowship. 


Amir holds a BA in Urban Studies and an MA in Urban Affairs from Queens College. 


As a performer, Amir has appeared in Ping Chong & Company's Beyond Sacred: Voices of Muslim Identity. He has also appeared in Gun Country, a Houses on the Moon theatre company production.

A lifelong New Yorker, Amir was born and raised in Jackson Heights, Queens into a working-class, Muslim, immigrant family. His mother is Puerto Rican and his father is an immigrant from Egypt. Follow him on Twitter @AmirKhafagy91

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New York Nail Salon Named One of the Worst Employers in the Country - Documented

It’s been two decades since immigrant worker Maria Isabel Coyotecatl worked at Envy Nails, a chain of 25 beauty parlors across the five boroughs, but the four months she worked there as a nail technician still disturb her to this day. “I had no lunch break, and I worked 12 hours a day, six days a week, and every day I suffered from headaches and stomach issues because everything we ate there tasted like acrylic since we ate at our stations and had no fridge,” she said. “There were more than 2...
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Workers Say DoorDash Has Resolved Only 1/3 of Wage Theft Claims - Documented

Dozens of app-workers gathered outside DoorDash’s Fifth Avenue headquarters Wednesday morning to deliver a clear message: pay up. The workers, organized by Los Deliveristas Unidos, claim DoorDash has resolved less than half of the wage theft cases they filed in November 2024. Workers Justice Project, which organizes delivery workers, says that DoorDash has only resolved around 30 of the 95 wage theft cases that were originally lodged with the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP...
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Merwil Gutiérrez’s Deportation Ignites Political Firestorm Among NY Elected Officials

When Documented first broke the story early last week of 19-year-old Venezuelan asylum seeker Merwil Gutiérrez detainment and alleged deportation by ICE, local elected officials across the city, such as Attorney General Letitia James, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, expressed a profusion of outrage.  Merwil Gutiérrez was allegedly detained 8 weeks ago by immigration officials and deported from his home in the Bronx to the mega prison in El Salvad...
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Complaints Pile Up at NYC Human Rights Commission — And Immigrant Workers Are Paying the Price

Advocates in New York City are sounding the alarm on how the critically underfunded and understaffed New York City Commission on Human Rights is failing to protect immigrant workers. The New York City Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) is responsible for protecting workers from workplace discrimination by taking, investigating, and prosecuting complaints regarding violations of the city’s Human Rights Law. But according to data collected by the Human Rights Law Working Group (HRLWG), in 2024, C...
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RFK Jr. Slammed for Layoffs That Could Bring ‘More Injuries, More Deaths’ to Immigrant Workers

New York workplace safety organizations are blasting a recent move from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who this week ordered layoffs of at least two-thirds of the staff at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).About 873 staff members are expected to be fired, which organizations say amounts to gutting a vital agency that protects workers, especially low-wage, immigrant, Black, and Latino workers, who are already facing among the highest rate...
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Workers Demand Answers as Hochul Backs Agency Accused of Wage Theft

With Governor Kathy Hochul’s controversial overhaul of the Consumer-Directed Personal Assistance Program that took effect this week, former home care workers and lawmakers are calling on her to cancel the contract with the Chinese-American Planning Council over allegations of wage theft. Established in 1995, the Consumer-Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP) allows disabled individuals on Medicaid to personally choose their own home caregiver, such as a family member. The state pays the...
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Justice for NYC Taxi Drivers: Landmark $140 Million Settlement Reached

On Monday, cab drivers won a milestone case against the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) in a decades-long battle for drivers’ justice. Attorneys representing nearly 20,000 taxi, app, or for-hire-vehicle drivers and the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA) announced at a press conference Tuesday that they reached a $140 million settlement with the City of New York, following a 19-year protracted legal battle. Speaking outside outside the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Courthouse, a...
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An E-Bike Registry Won’t Fix New York's Streets, Delivery Workers Say

Last year, in response to a rise in injuries and fatalities related to both e-bikes and mopeds, City Council member Robert Holden introduced a bill to require delivery workers to register their e-bikes with the New York City Department of Transportation (DOT) and be issued license plates. While Council member Holden said the bill would create more accountability for e-bike riders, immigrant delivery workers say the increased regulation shifts the blame for unsafe streets onto them instead of th...
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What Has Happened Since Arrest of Legal U.S. Resident of Palestinian Descent Mahmoud Khalil: Trump Says “First of Many” - Documented

A judge in the United States District Court Southern District of New York, Jesse M. Furman has blocked Mahmoud Khalil’s removal from the U.S. pending further action on a habeas petition filed by Khalil’s attorney, Amy Greer, in a new update by POLITICO’s Josh Gerstein. A habeas petition is a legal request filed by an individual who is being detained or imprisoned, asking a court to determine whether their detention is lawful. It is typically used when a person believes they are being held in vi...
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Immigrant Hotel Workers Allege New Management Is Violating Union Contract

In their battle with new management, immigrant workers for the luxury hotel Urban Resort NYC in Hell’s Kitchen say it’s been nothing short of “hell.” Despite a union contract meant to protect them, immigrant workers at Urban Resort NYC, formerly Cachet Hotel, say they are still facing contract and payment disputes. They have also raised safety concerns over the conditions of working in the hotel. Several workers at Urban Resort NYC, who spoke exclusively with Documented, claim that hotel manag...
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Negligent Homicide Charge Dropped in Immigrant Worker's Death

When construction contractor Michael Conway was charged last year with criminally negligent homicide in the death of immigrant construction worker Jose Vega, it was the first time in Westchester County that an employer was held criminally responsible for the death of a worker. Labor organizations and workplace safety agencies celebrated the news and saw Westchester District Attorney Mimi Rocah’s charges as the first step in reigning in unscrupulous contractors who put worker’s safety at risk....
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DoorDash to Pay Millions of Workers’ Stolen Tips

Delivery workers like William Medina, who has been working for DoorDash since moving to New York from Colombia in 2019, often risk life and limb as they navigate the city streets. Although as of 2024 delivery workers are now entitled to earn a living wage, for years, workers have claimed that DoorDash has been finding ways of systematically siphoning off their wages. Now, after an investigation by New York Attorney General Letitia James, their claims have been vindicated. Yesterday, James anno...
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Immigrant Hospital Workers Receive Over $640K After Wage Theft Settlement

The New York City comptroller’s office announced a settlement today with United Staffing Solutions, a healthcare staffing agency, for its failure to pay hundreds of thousands in prevailing wages to its workers, many of whom are immigrants. The settlement totals $644,032.81, including back wages, civil penalties, and interest to 54 former temp workers who were employed at various medical facilities across the five boroughs. According to the comptroller’s office, one worker alone was owed $30,000...
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New York State Is Planning on Secretly Flooding Subways With Parole Officers to ‘Stop and Frisk’ Parolees

A new pilot program targeting prison parolees who ride public transit may be rolling out, with the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision working hand in hand with the NYPD. The goal? Reducing crime on the subway. A source within DOCCS is criticizing the program, saying it’s a waste of resources and calling it “Stop and Frisk 2.0” because parolees in New York City are not barred from mass transit. Instead of helping the formally incarcerated reenter society, a policy...
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After False ICE Raid Reports, New York Sikhs Mobilize Against Misinformation

“US agents’ visit to gurdwaras sparks concern among Sikh[s],” reported several Indian news outlets like the Hindustan Times and the Economic Times on Jan. 27. They published reports that numerous gurdwaras, Sikh houses of worship, throughout the tri-state area were raided by Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The stories sent Sikh community leaders in Richmond Hill, Queens, home to one of the largest Sikh enclaves in the country, into a frenzy as they tried to...
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Homeless, Jobless and Afraid: New York's Day Laborers Struggle to Survive

Sidewalks and street corners at popular day labor spots in Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island were once teeming with immigrant men looking for work. But lately, fewer jornaleros, Spanish for day laborers, are on the corners, and work has become scarce. An undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, Manuel, 36, is one of the estimated 8,000 to 10,000 day laborers who call New York home, most of whom are recent arrivals. Since 2012, Manuel, who asked asked to be identified by first name only, has held...
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Trump's Attack on DEI Initiatives Could Put the Kibosh on Immigrant Worker Safety Programs - Documented

Two days after President Trump took office, recipients of the Susan Harwood Training Grants Program received an email from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) asking them to cease all activities related to “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” The email came in response to President Trump’s executive orders calling for federal agencies to dismantle DEI initiatives. The orders not only call for the federal government to end DEI programs internally, but also for recipients of f...
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Labor Unions Ready Immigrant Workers for Trump Deportations 2.0

Don’t answer any questions without a lawyer. Don’t open the door to ICE if they don’t have a judicial warrant. Make a plan with your family in case you are suddenly arrested and detained. This is just some of the advice immigrant workers have been getting at workers’ centers and labor unions this past week. The organizations have begun preparing their members for the possibility of being deported following President Trump’s promise to deport 11 million undocumented migrants in the United Stat...
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Trump’s Death Penalty Executive Order Could Violate Immigrants' Human Rights - Documented

President Donald Trump has signed 11 executive orders related to immigration, which combined with his inaugural speech, send a clear message about heavy immigration enforcement to come. Documented has been going through the details of each executive order from the White House, and talked to experts to understand what these may mean for our communities. Of the 11 executive orders, one is headlined “restoring the death penalty.” The steady decline in executions in the United States could see a r...
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New York Attorney General Is Suing to Block President Trump’s Executive Order Ending Birthright Citizenship - Documented

Yesterday, within hours of taking office, President Trump signed ten executive orders directly pertaining to immigration. Among them was his order to end birthright citizenship for children born to non-citizen parents. In response, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced today that she and a multistate coalition of 18 states, as well as the City of San Francisco, are suing the administration for violating the constitutional right given to all children born in the United States. The l...
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