A working-class immigrant neighborhood in Queens banned cars along a major road. The new park is a 'superhighway of kids and families and neighbors.'

Eliza Relman/Business Insider

On a recent sunny Friday afternoon in Jackson Heights, Queens, dozens of migrants filled out applications for asylum at folding tables set up in the street outside a local elementary school. Former Manhattan prosecutor Nuala O'Doherty-Naranjo, who operates the free legal clinic three days a week, sat nearby answering questions.