East End Municipalities Continue To Discuss OLA ICE Accountability Law
- Dan Stark
- Apr 9
- 4 min read
A proposed law by Organizacíon Latino Americana of Eastern Long Island that seeks accountability and transparency regarding federal immigration action on the East End was first introduced to municipalities that have their own police departments in February to consider. In the two months since an initial meeting with officials from East End towns and villages, municipalities have made varying degrees of progress on the proposed law.
The base version of the law, which was drafted by former State Assemblyman and current OLA board member Fred Thiele, encourages municipalities to establish protocols for local law enforcement about how to interact with federal agents, as well as requirements for reporting ICE activity. The law was written in a way that towns and villages are able to adapt it to suit the needs of their municipality.
Across the East End, some localities have moved forward with looking into the law, while others have raised questions as they seek to learn more about it. Residents have regularly voiced their support for the law at different public meetings.
East Hampton Village has led the pack so far, as the Village Board offered its support at a meeting on March 20 and scheduled a public hearing on the law to occur on April 22.
The village’s version of the law includes a rule that would block federal officials from accessing data taken from license plate readers used by Village Police, which is stored in a password-protected system. Mayor Jerry Larsen said that if federal agents want information, they will have to request it directly from the village.
“I put this legislation forward because I feel very strongly about this,” said Larsen at the March meeting. “I appreciate the work that OLA has done to put rapid response teams in place. They brought a law forward that they recommended. I agree that we should have a law in place. I think it codifies what our police department is already doing, but it reassures the public that we are doing the right thing.”
East Hampton Town has also moved forward with discussions on the law. OLA Executive Director Minerva Perez spoke at the Town Board’s meeting on March 19 and noted that the board seemed in support of looking into the law more.
“We have hope for that, we think that everyone really is getting it,” Perez said in a phone call. “Plus, they’ve got a really great Latino Advisory Committee and those folks seem to be certainly understanding and behind what this law means.”
At the Town Board’s meeting on Tuesday, Town Attorney Jake Turner discussed a draft of the town’s version of the law, a version that Thiele said via Zoom was an improvement over the original OLA draft. The board was unanimous in its support for the draft law and will hold a public hearing on May 7.
In Sag Harbor Village, which is split between East Hampton and Southampton Towns, there have been ongoing discussions between Perez and Mayor Tom Gardella. Gardella said that he wants to do something to “calm the anxiety that’s happening in the community,” though he’s taking a cautious approach so far in order to protect Village Police.
“I didn’t want to pass or propose anything that would cause a conflict with [ICE agents], and I certainly don’t want local law enforcement confronting federal agents, that could become a very ugly situation right away,” he said in a recent call.
Gardella said that the village “is close to doing something,” though he’s still waiting to get more feedback from law enforcement. He also said that the Village Board has discussed coming up with something to inform residents about what their rights are in situations involving federal agents.
At the board’s March 10 meeting, multiple local business owners expressed their support for the law. Among them was Sen owner Jesse Matsuoka, who said that some of his staff members who are legal citizens fear coming into work every day, citing instances of how some people have been detained and sent across the country.
David Loewenberg, who owns The Bell & Anchor, said that a young man who worked for him was picked up by ICE agents around Thanksgiving and wasn’t let free until near right before Christmas.
“It’s fearful, it’s horrible, it’s fascist,” he said. “So anything we can do to have some of this transparency would be fabulous. Because we depend on this, no one’s going to have services if we can’t have people that feel safe and are comfortable and trying to do the right thing.”
In Southampton Town as a whole, Perez has been pushing for a work session with the Town Board. She said that OLA has “an absolutely amazing relationship with the Southampton Police Department,” though emphasized that “policy needs to be created and [be] accountable on the shoulders of our elected officials.”
Anita Boyer, a Hampton Bays resident who has been one of the most prominent activists against federal immigration activity on the East End, spoke at the Town Board’s March 24 meeting to rally support for the law, taking note of the guidelines the law has in place for local law enforcement.
“What this law proposes to do is utilize everyone in the community who already is here to support us and make us all feel safe,” she said.
Some villages within Southampton Town have not been as active as their counterparts to the East. In Southampton Village, Perez spoke at the Village Board’s meeting on March 24 for a short five-minute overview of the law.
Both Mayor Bill Manger and Police Chief Suzanne Harteau said that conversations are still ongoing about the law and had no further comment at the time.
Meanwhile in Westhampton Beach, Mayor Ralph Urban said that he and members of the Village Board have been in touch with Perez regularly. However, he said that he is not pushing to take further action on the law at the moment, citing the Village Police’s policies.
“A lot of this is covered from our police policies already, so from our perspective right now, some of this we are handling in another matter,” he said. “From all the board members I’ve spoken to individually, we don’t see a need to take action yet of any kind.”
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