A crowd of supporters of a local law to guide public safety during immigration enforcement efforts, dressed in black, spoke up at the Riverhead Town Board’s Aug. 18 meeting asking the town to enter into conversations with Latino advocacy group OLA of Eastern Long Island.
After listening to nearly two hours of public testimony without comment, Town Supervisor Jerry Halpin said it had been a “great meeting with a great many comments” and said he had already met with OLA Executive Director Minerva Perez.
Ms. Perez, who joined the crowd in asking the Town Board to hold a formal work session to discuss the law, jumped up, saying the Supervisor had mischaracterized their meeting.
“I did have a chance to meet with Supervisor Halpin, perhaps because he felt pressure to do so,” she said. “We did not speak at all about the law. At the end of our conversation he said he didn’t want to speak about that.”
She added that, while the Supervisor had characterized their meeting as a chance to discuss what OLA can do in Riverhead, OLA has “been serving and working in Riverhead for 24 years. I don’t need your permission.”
Ms. Perez said OLA had worked with New York State on programs to provide hotspots and Chromebooks to Riverhead students and had helped distribute New York State Emergency Rental Assistance Program funds to landlords when tenants couldn’t pay their rent during Covid.
“Our work with Riverhead is a dedicated thing,” she said. “We love Riverhead, but that last comment was disingenuous.”
“I don’t understand why such an important conversation like this could not have been moved to a serious and meaningful conversation in a work session,” she said.
Mr. Halpin, the only person on the Riverhead Town Board elected as a Democrat, has been the only board member to engage in any sort of recent dialogue with OLA.
Board member Joann Waski has publicly said she supports ICE and she believes Riverhead’s “tax dollars should support our own citizens” in a letter to our colleagues at Riverhead Local, in response to an open letter from Ms. Perez to Mr. Halpin earlier this summer.
The OLA model public safety law, drafted by former State Assemblyman Fred Thiele, would provide a guide for how local law enforcement interacts with outside law enforcement agencies when they are conducting operations in town, and includes guidelines for how information about those actions are communicated to the Town Board and the public. It could also include the creation of a task force charged with exploring how those policies are working, and could be customized to meet the needs of each town.
East Hampton Town and Village have already approved such a law, and Southold is in the process of drafting guidelines that it expects to pass as a resolution in the near future. Ms. Perez has been advocating that Southold pass the measures as a local law.
“It is a law on purpose. It makes it very clear to the Town Board, all town institutions and law enforcement, that there is a plan to put into action in the event that something is causing panic and disruption,” Ms. Perez told the Riverhead Town Board Aug. 18. “No one’s asking you stop ICE. Let’s have a real conversation about it, with actual real information and facts.”
Her comments were met with hearty applause.
Colin Tooker of Riverhead said he’d recently asked leaders of Riverhead’s Anti-Bias Task Froce if they had “discussed the impact of ICE actions on town residents, and if they had been asked for recommendations about ICE’s impact on the Latino community.
“They said no, which seemed odd to me,” he said. “I then asked them, if the Ku Klux Klan marched down Main Street, would that be an issue that would fall under their purview, and they said no, which seems rather odd for the Anti-Bias Task Force.”
He asked the board repeatedly, on two occasions throughout the meeting, if they intend to take action to mitigate the fears of town residents caused by ICE actions. No one answered initially.
“I constantly am speaking about safety in our town, about everyone,” said Mr. Halpin, eventually. “It’s not limited to any area and we are constantly speaking to all of our officers and our police department.”
“I will mark that as ‘no, you have no intent to take any actions,” said Mr. Tooker.
“That’s what we do every day of the week, seven days of the week,” said Councilman Bob Kern when Mr. Tooker asked again later in the meeting. “We address what is going on in this town. What do you think we do, just live in the basement and show up to vote?”
Kimberly Wilder of Riverhead said she was concerned that a board members’ comments (presumably Ms. Waski’s), “asserted they are only responsible for people who are here legally.”
“That leaves open the question of who our council people are legally required to protect,” she said. “At what length of time would our councilpeople care about the rights of people newly moved here?…. Do elected officials technically represent children under 18 years old? Do we make sure tourists are safe on our roads and protected from human rights abuses? Do people from New York City and Nassau deserve safe roads?”
Kerry Flanagan of Riverhead said a driver with a heavy accent asked her for directions in downtown Riverhead the prior weekend, saying he’d driven to Riverhead from Ridgewood, Queens, and she wondered to herself whether she should tell him he wasn’t safe in Riverhead.
“That thought is shocking to me now. It’s a shameful and sad commentary on the state of our town board members,” she said, adding that a public exchange she’d had last month with Ms. Waski about the issue had been shared 20,000 times on social media with “people not just in Riverhead but other areas of New York and the country,” reflecting badly on the town.
“Did I mention he was white, Polish and spoke with a heavy Polish accent? Should I have to?” said Ms. Flanagan. “I hope he found his way to the Polish Fair.”
“This is not an anti-ICE law,” said resident Tricia Martinez. “It does not stop lawful immigration enforcement. It provides clear communications, transparency and accountability for local leaders when immigration enforcement activities are taking place.”
“We’ve had community members on the East End here that have no deportation order, no known record of being a violent person” picked up by ICE, said Rosario Rodriguez of Riverhead. “I’m here urging conversation and review of the OLA local legislation.”
Ms. Rodriguez said there are quite a few immigrant business owners in Riverhead, and “a few have expressed the impacts of the presence of ICE on their business…. If you guys are fighting for America, as you say, I hope you consider the realities of all of it to everyone.”
Methodist Pastor Pat Chuppe said her son-in-law is Hispanic and her daughter and grandchildren are very afraid he will be picked up by ICE.
“This isn’t just a problem for Hispanic people,” she said. “My grandchildren are afraid their stepfather’s not going to be there. They lost their father, with 100 percent disability from the Iraq war, and they’re afraid they will lose another father.”
She added that she helped organize a vigil not just for those killed by ICE but also for people killed by undocumented immigrants, and fallen members of the police and military, but “the only ones that showed up were people who show up for candlelight vigils for people killed by ICE agents. No one showed up for the vigil for other people they supposedly cared about.”
Silvina Silvi Vega, a resident of Wading River and a “brand new American citizen,” said she recently applied for a U.S. Passport, and had to send the State Department her citizenship certificate along with the paperwork, meaning she currently doesn’t have proof of her citizenship.
“I have no documentation that I am a citizen, and I was terrified to come to Riverhead,” she said. “I am an educated person. I have a degree in Argentina and my own business and home here. I speak the language and I am terrified.”
Alison Matway of Wading River enumerated 21 documentations of ICE agents operating in Riverhead since the beginning of this year.
“I shouldn’t know this information alone. You should,” she said to the Town Board. “Meet with us. That’s all we ask.”
Georgette Lauzier-Keller, a literacy specialist in the Riverhead Central School District, said she wants to “advocate for the children of our town.”
“The fear and anxiety we see in young children today is more than alarming,” she said. “Each of us has a voice, and each of us matter. We need all people to work together in cooperation.”
“Our children, particularly Latino children, do not feel safe,” said Brianna Hearn, adding that as of April, the website Border Report reported 145,000 children who are U.S. citizens have had a parent detained by ICE, while 22,000 U.S. citizen children have had both parents detained.
“Parents do not want to reveal they have children” to ICE agents, she added. “Children understand this is happening. What kind of impact is this state of being having on their psyche?”
“This is a turning point for our country, and for Riverhead,” said Ethel Sussman of South Jamesport. “We have to figure out what we’re all about in this town, as well as this country. I’m here in great support of the OLA legislation. It’s shocking to me that this town, this town board and committees supposed to be dealing with these issues are not even talking about it. It’s your responsibility to talk about it. This is one of the most important issues of our time. I urge you to step up and deal with it. We need you. Other towns have done it. Riverhead can do it too.”
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