There are few traces of it now, but a utility pole on 35th Avenue and Skillman Avenue in Sunnyside had a message on it that got a lot of attention.

"I saw the flyer on the opposite side of this and stopped dead in my tracks," said Jimmy Van Bramer, the area's city councilman.

That flyer read in big black font, "It is your civic duty to report any and all illegal aliens to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement."

Van Bramer says the minute he saw it Sunday, he tore it down, and then shared a video of himself doing so on Twitter.

"This is a borough that welcomes all immigrants. This is Sunnyside. This is a comunity that is progressive and welcomes all immigrants," he said. "We are not in the business of determining who is documented or not."

Queens is the most diverse of the five boroughs, exemplified by Blinks Deli, just a block from where the poster was placed. The owner is from South Korea. The manager is from Mexico.

Both say the sign is hurtful.

"We try to work hard and everything, make a living, so it's not fair that someone just do that, to report immigrants," the deli's manager said.

While this is the first and only reported spotting of the sign in New York City, it's not the first time it's been found in the U.S.

A white supremacist group took credit for posting the same sign on the campus of the University of Texas in Austin. They've also popped up on the campus of Washington State University and in Omaha, Nebraska.

It's not known who posted the signs in Sunnyside, but officials with the immigrant advocacy group Make the Road are blaming President Donald Trump's hardline policies toward the undocumented for encouraging such behavior.

"They're more boldened to say, 'We don't want undocumented folks living with us,'" said Julissa Bisono of Make The Road NY.

The poster provides the phone number of the ICE tip line, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement tells NY1 it did not make or distribute the posters. In fact, it is illegal to post any flyer on city property.