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 Workers Left to Sweat After TEMP Act Dies in Albany - Documented

As the summer kicks off with yet another record-breaking heat wave, working New Yorkers who toil under extreme heat conditions are going to have to wait to get some relief.  Last week, the New York Legislature ended its summer session without passing the Temp Act, a bill that would have provided workers legal protections from extreme temperatures. Introduced by New York State Senator Jessica Ramos in 2024, the legislation requires employers in agriculture, construction, landscaping, shipping,...
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Rank-and-File Members Push Their Union to Rescind Cuomo Endorsement - Documented

A group of rank-and-file union members from 1199SEIU are hoping to upend the mayoral race tomorrow by submitting a petition to rescind 1199SEIU’s endorsement of Andrew Cuomo for mayor of New York City, citing his record of scandals and close ties to the union’s former president accused of corruption. On Friday, members of New York’s largest healthcare worker union, 1199SEIU, submitted a petition signed by over 350 union members calling on newly elected union President Yvonne Armstrong to rescind...
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A Total Knockout: Lucha Libre is a Celebration of Culture, Resilience and Fun - Documented

It was Trump’s birthday. Tanks were rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C, and 5 million protesters flooded the streets of U.S. cities and towns. But in Trump’s hometown of Queens, around 250 New Yorkers wore elaborate, colorful masks to celebrate an integral part of Mexico’s heritage: lucha libre.  At Woodside Queens La Boom, a nightclub in Queens, masked luchadores and luchadoras flung each other across the wrestling ring in an acrobatic spectacle that delighted devoted fans w...
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Bangladeshi GrubHub Workers Protest Unfair Deactivations - Documented

Dozens of immigrant Grubhub workers protested outside the company’s Manhattan office Wednesday morning to demand that the company reinstate them after what they say are unjust deactivations. According to organizers with the Workers’ Justice Project (WJP), 52 Bangladeshi GrubHub delivery workers received the same email on June 10 stating that they were deactivated.  The following day, five workers visited WJP’s office seeking help with their deactivation. An hour later, 25 more workers who...
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Head of Sham Construction School Pleads Guilty in Death of Immigrant Worker - Documented

Immigrant construction worker Ivan Frias, 36, thought he was certified in fall protection by construction safety school Valor Security & Investigations. But on Nov. 28, 2022, he fell 15 floors to his death while working on a non-union construction site in the Upper West Side.  The school, in fact, was a sham. Court reports later detailed how the school fabricated safety certificates without providing proper training. The night after Frias’s death, workers’ rights activists held a makeshift vi...
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New Labor Laws Bring Safety Protections to NYS Warehouse and Retail Workers

Beginning last week, working in the retail industry or in a warehouse in New York has become safer. The Retail Worker Safety Act and the Warehouse Worker Injury Reduction Act both took effect this week, affording workers across the state new labor protections guaranteed under the law. Both bills were sponsored by State Senator Jessica Ramos and passed by the New York Legislature last June.  The Retail Worker Safety Act, which took effect last Wednesday, mandates that retail employers with...
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Leading Immigrant Rights Nonprofit Make the Road Lays Off Dozens, Sparking Staff Outcry - Documented Leading Immigrant Rights Nonprofit Make the Road Lays Off Dozens, Sparking Staff Outcry

Internal turmoil has plagued Make the Road New York, the state’s largest immigrant-led community-based organization, with staff speaking out against planned layoffs.  Beginning on May 31, Make the Road New York (MRNY) laid off 32 staff members and reduced the hours of another 15 staff members across five of its community centers. Before the layoffs, MRNY employed 248 people.   With the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrant communities in full swing, staff who spoke exclusively with...
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Study Finds Queens Casino Bid Could Displace Over 50,000 Renters

With the New York State Senate voting next month on Mets billionaire owner Steve Cohen’s dream to build a casino, a recently released report suggests that the project could very well displace the communities it purports to serve.  Published on April 29 by the Urban Institute, the study found that the nearby communities of Corona and Flushing, both with sizable immigrant populations, are at risk of rising rent costs as a result of the casino’s potential development. As the majority of resident...
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Workers at LaGuardia Airport Demand Heat Protections Amid Rising Temps

It was a sweltering 95 degrees at the tarmac at LaGuardia Airport on July 8, 2024, but for Garvey Barrett, a 68-year-old Jamaican baggage handler for Alliance Ground International, it felt more like the top of a griddle.  A tarmac’s dark pavement absorbs and radiates heat, which means surface temperatures can rise to 20 degrees hotter than the air temperature. “It was one of the hottest days of the year,” Barrett recalled. “We are outside a lot, working hard.” That day, Barrett demanded th...
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A Stalemate at the Gates: Newark Mayor Challenges ICE Delaney Hall Detention Center

On a dreary Tuesday morning, Newark’s Mayor Ras Baraka found himself in a political standoff.  Standing outside the chain-linked fence of the Delaney Hall immigration detention center, Baraka and several representatives from various Newark City agencies demanded to be let in. On the other side, Delaney Hall employees closed the fence, padlocked it, and turned their backs on Mayor Baraka when he asked to speak to a supervisor about entering the facility to inspect if it was in violation of mun...
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On International Workers’ Day, Immigrant Home Care Workers Demand an End to Exploitative 24-Hour Shifts - Documented

For International Workers’ Day, nearly a hundred immigrant home care workers marched outside the gates of City Hall to demand that City Council pass legislation to abolish 24-hour work shifts in the home care industry.  “If we can stop 24-hour work shifts, patients will get better care, and workers will finally be able to get sleep and spend time with their family,” said Cai Qiong Liu, a 68-year-old home care attendant from China. Liu worked as a home care worker for 18 years before retiri...
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'When We Fight, We Win': ConEd Workers Celebrate Union Victory on May Day - Documented

Every year, on the first of May, working people across the world celebrate International Workers’ Day, honoring past and future labor victories. This year, workers have yet another victory to celebrate. More than 100 mostly immigrant building cleaners, who worked tirelessly through the COVID-19 pandemic at Con Edison facilities across New York City, have won their first-ever union contract today, joining the largest property service workers union in the country, 32BJ SEIU. Although these b...
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Immigrant Caregivers Say State-Backed Home Care Agency Stole Their Wages - Documented

New York’s controversial Consumer-Directed Personal Assistance Program transition is off to a rocky start, say immigrant caregivers and consumers who note the new program’s fiscal administrator, Public Partnerships LLC (PPL), has been plagued with missed payments and language access issues.First established in 1995, the Consumer-Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP) was designed to allow disabled individuals on Medicaid to choose their own personal home caregiver, such as a family member....
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After Documented Exposé, a New York Senator Aims to Shut Down Repeat Wage Theft Offenders for Good

Despite being found guilty of stealing over $31,000 in wages from immigrant day laborers, construction contractor Artemio Fuerte didn’t close shop. Two of his companies, Fuerte Construction LLC and Fuerte Construction Services LLC, are still listed as active with the New York Department of State Division of Corporations.  After Documented’s exposé on Fuerte last August, New York Senator Shelley Mayer introduced a bill in Albany that would suspend business licenses for those charged or convict...
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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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