Protests Over ICE Detentions Continue To Ripple Across South Fork

Protests over the detention of at least a dozen people by federal immigration agents in Hampton Bays and Westhampton earlier this month continued to ripple across the South Fork this week.

Dozens of angry residents bombarded the Southampton Town Board last Wednesday, November 12, with demands that local officials take steps to express opposition to federal immigration operations here. About 55 protesters demonstrated in Westhampton on Friday morning and another protest is planned for this coming Friday, November 21, in East Hampton.

The residents demanded that town leaders, and their related agencies, do something to make a more forceful objection to the federal agents prowling local streets in search of undocumented immigrants.

“We cannot take our eyes off what is happening right now to tear apart this place we call home,” Vanessa Rojano said, reading a letter by Minerva Perez, the executive director of OLA of Eastern Long Island, at the November 13 Town Board meeting. “We are seeing firsthand … the destruction of all we have come to know about public safety from the perspective of children and elders.”

Perez challenged the Town Board to take more forceful action as a role model in demanding that federal agencies not bring their search for undocumented immigrants back to the South Fork.

“The idea that another agency — without regard for the working structure of our town — could snatch our community members away without report or consequence is unacceptable,” she said in her letter. “Hearing the statement ‘there is not much we can do,’ cannot suffice. We need to know what you can do to uphold your pledge to public safety.”

Hampton Bays resident Lorry Werner recalled seeing the armed ICE agents preparing for the detention sweep on November 5 and chase a man, guns drawn, into a bakery she frequents.

“The bakery my sister and I have gone to for pastries — they go into a bakery with loaded guns,” Werner said. “I could have been sitting there having tea. This has got to stop.”

“Now we have masked federal agents on our street snatching up people,” Brigid Maher said. “I’m not talking about immigration, I’m talking about tactics and inhumanity … doing nothing is unacceptable.”

Town Supervisor Maria Moore said she empathized with those angered by the deportation wave and the way ICE conducts its work and sought to assure residents that no town officials — including the Southampton Town Police Department — were notified that the federal agents were on their way.

“I understand there is concern and anxiety because of the ICE activities we saw in Hampton Bays and Westhampton last week, and the most difficult part is that there is no clear accurate information coming our way,” she said.

“The families that live and work here are part of the fabric of our schools, the economy and our neighborhoods,” she added. “We are safer and stronger as a community when people feel secure enough to go to work and send their children to school and seek help when they need it. While immigration enforcement is a federal matter outside the jurisdiction of this town government, that does not mean that we are indifferent or powerless.”

Moore said she would be penning a letter to Senator Chuck Schumer and U.S. Representative Nick LaLota asking that the town be better informed of ICE activity within its borders.

But simply making diplomatic appeals is insufficient, residents said.

“I’m not sure a letter requesting more cooperation from ICE is what’s called for,” Jonathan Haynes said. “What’s called for is our elected representatives and people from the schools standing together and saying to ICE: You are not welcome. This is not what we want in our community.”

Another resident, Nicholas Palumbo, asked that the town order its own local police officers to respond when immigration agents are in the community and document the operation on their body cameras and dashboard cameras, and that local elected officials join the protesters.

“I thank the brave men and women who have stood on the streets with signs and whistles. But why is it left to us, the members of the community?” he asked. “I ask that you, the local officials, stand with your constituents. We want to see you at our protests, at our meet and greets and our sign making events. I implore you to help us ensure the safety and legality of these enforcement actions.”

Haynes said the tactics used by federal agents appear designed less to efficiently seek out undocumented immigrants with criminal pasts and more to simply “terrify a large part of our community, which they are doing very successfully,” divide neighbors by demonizing immigrants and “normalize” the site of masked federal agents apprehending people without due process.

Sag Harbor resident Leah Oppenheimer asked that the town help a Latino community — much of which is made up of U.S. citizen children of immigrants — by improving social services and mental health services for children wracked with fear about the potential for their parents getting deported.

Simply standing by and saying there is nothing local government or regular citizens can do is unacceptable, Brigid Maher, said.

“We all feel powerless,” she said, “but doing nothing is not an option. If more people show up and protest we may make a difference.”

Councilwoman Cyndi McNamara also told those who had protested outside the Hampton Bays Fire Department last week that members of the department had been bothered by the choice of venue just because the federal agents used the department parking lot to leave their personal vehicles.

“These are our volunteer first responders that are there to protect our community, and they had absolutely nothing to do with what happened,” McNamara said. “They cannot keep federal agents from public property. It hurt their family members to see their loved ones who go to work every day to serve the community. I would just ask that you not [protest] at our local fire departments.”

Vanessa Rojano said that the protesters had not intended to offend the firefighters and their families. But, she said, if the fire department objected to the presence of the ICE officers using the parking lot, why did their members not join the protest as well.

“I’m sorry that the fire department volunteers and their families felt that they were being personally attacked for something they did not do. But that’s not what the protest was doing and I’m sorry they interpreted it that way. People were joining in community to say that they did not appreciate our public facilities being used as staging locations for masked men in unmarked vehicles to come in and take away people who may or may not have been citizens.”

On Friday morning, more than 50 protesters lined the streets of Westhampton — across from the Westhampton Beach Fire Department headquarters — calling for ICE to stay away from the region.

“I’m very upset at the constant news about the way immigrants are being treated, even though they’re such an integral part of our community on Long Island,” David Saunders said at the protest. “It’s a thrill for me to be able to stand out here and tell my neighbors that I support due process in America.”

“I see the fear. I see the unlawful activities going on, perpetrated by our own government,” echoed Carol Blankenhorn. “Our freedom and freedom of our neighbors are being taken way.”

Source: https://www.27east.com/southampton-press/protests-over-ice-detentions-continue-to-ripple-across-south-fork-2407374/