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'Oh Wait Is That ICE?!': Woman Taunts Hijabi Woman On NYC Bus In Video
'Immigration at the door!' shouted a woman self-identifying as Ashley in this viral video on a Staten Island bus.
A video has emerged of a woman harassing a woman wearing a hijab on a New York City bus.
The woman, caught on camera taunting a woman in the Muslim headscarf, even volunteers her own name.
“Hi I’m Ashley [inaudible],” she says from the back of the bus, waving at the camera a few feet from where she is seated. “I’m getting into a fight with some Muslim chick because she has an attitude. She thinks she has rights that she doesn’t have.”
The video was posted on Twitter by a person identified as Marco Lao by CNN.
Lao, who apparently shot the video, told Gothamist that the incident took place on a Staten Island-bound S53 bus from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
The altercation reportedly began after the woman in the headscarf accidentally triggered an alarm by standing too close to the back entrance of the bus, to which a woman screamed “Get the f*ck away from the door," Gothamist reported. The Muslim woman then allegedly cast her a dirty look, prompting her to go on the angry tirade.
Lao also told CNN that the screaming woman told the woman in the hijab that "ICE should take her kids away."
At the beginning of the video, the Muslim woman appears to be talking back to Ashley, though the nature of that conversation is not clear.
“I am a citizen, I am a citizen,” says the woman in a singsong way. She then snaps: “Did you see the sign, you f*king speak English?”
The 30-seconds long video ends with Ashley taunting, “Immigration at the door! Oh wait is that ICE?!”
Lao told CNN that that driver eventually intervened through the intercom, and the situation was "diffused."
A recent survey conducted by NYC Commission on Human Rights noted that 19% of those who wear religious clothing report being shoved on a subway platform. The survey also said 71% of religious and ethnic minorities — including Muslims, Arab, and South Asian New Yorkers — don’t report harassment.
The video, originally posted on YouTube on Wednesday, went viral by Thursday afternoon with more than 300K views on Twitter and many public figures weighing in.
Rob Bennett, a former communications director with the NYC mayor’s office, tweeted, “I don’t know who Ashley is but this is unacceptable in New York City.”
[Photo: Screenshot from YouTube by user Nightblade]
