Newburgh's Moment: Leaders Must Choose a Side on ICE
How One ICE Facility Exposed Newburgh's Leadership Crisis
You may recall that The Monroe Gazette had a “crazy” suggestion that the municipalities surrounding Chester pass a local law prohibiting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from setting up in their neighborhood.
Nobody listened to us.
And here we are with ICE setting up shop in a nearby municipality.
We don’t believe in “I Told You So.”
But if I were a resident of Orange County, I’d be asking the legislature to pass a global ban on any ICE facilities, and I’d be asking each municipality to explicitly do the same.
If you can do this to opt-out of hosting marijuana dispensaries, you can do the same for concentration camps.
The Town of Newburgh provides us with another case study for why you might want to follow this advice.
Because ICE isn’t going away.
They’re quieter now, but they’re arresting 2,000 people a day, harassing people who post anti-ICE comments on the internet, and judges are handing out sentences that essentially amount to life sentences to people protesting outside of ICE facilities.
While Chester residents, and numerous others, organized a protest of more than 800 people to oppose the ICE facility at 29 Elizabeth Drive, the Newburgh Town Board, despite warnings to pass a local law prohibiting the use of its warehouses by ICE, chose not to do so. Now, Town of Newburgh residents have to do what Chester residents did before them.
Pictured Above: U.S. Rep. Pat Ryan speaks to concerned Town of Newburgh residents about the potential ICE facility opening at 800 Corporate Boulevard. ICE and DHS have not replied to requests for comment about their plans for this address from The Monroe Gazette. Faces of protestors have been blurred to protect them from retaliation from ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility.
U.S. Rep. Pat Ryan’s office did not reply to requests for comment concerning whether Pat Ryan will pledge to investigate and, if criminal action is found, prosecute everyone involved with the ICE warehouse program and other ICE operations.
U.S. Rep. Ryan’s opponent, Jackie Auringer, put out a statement claiming to oppose the Newburgh ICE facility, but then puzzlingly blamed New York Democrats for its existence. Stating, “When Albany blocks the use of existing, professional, well-run local facilities, like our county jails, it should surprise no one when the federal government starts looking for alternatives.”
However, both the Chester facility and the Newburgh facility predate the recent laws passed in Albany.
The Monroe Gazette asked Ms. Auringer if she can clarify the connection between the Democrats’ relative inaction on immigration this session and how that specifically created the situation in Newburgh or need for a facility in Chester.
We also asked how she could consider Orange County Jail professionally run given all this.
She has not replied at deadline.
It Turns Out, the Town of Newburgh Is Just as Dysfunctional as Everywhere Else
Town of Newburgh Councilmember Mary Lou Carolan requested a formal resolution opposing the Chester facility and future facilities like it in February; the board offered no meaningful response. She told The Monroe Gazette, “The Town Supervisor and Deputy Town Supervisor stated back in February that they were doing what was asked of them by the County Executive, which was to write a letter stating the town of Newburgh aligns with Orange County in not wanting ICE facilities in the county.
They stopped short of a resolution or any other strong statement decrying the use of town warehouses as detention centers. When I asked whether they knew if all the warehouses in the town were occupied, the Deputy Supervisor implied that they were. My concerns about the plethora of warehouses in the town, which make us vulnerable to becoming the next location for Department of Homeland Security (DHS) operations, were summarily disregarded.” (The Monroe Gazette has reached out to Deputy Supervisor Scott Manley for comment.)
We asked Councilmember Carolan about what made the town attractive to DHS; she told us, “Over the last six months, we had ample time to plan and prepare a strategy for handling situations like this. Upon hearing of this proposed site on June 30, I immediately asked the Town Supervisor what he knew about this, and his response was that this was the first time he was hearing about it.”
[Reader note: As we already pointed out, this was a lie by the Town Supervisor. He was previously asked about this situation by The Monroe Gazette on May 19.]
“My question was: “Why is the town in the dark about this?” Granted the feds are doing what they want across the country, ignoring local laws and working directly with building owners to cut lucrative deals with DHS, but we should know who is occupying our warehouses and what businesses are being run out of them. Why are we not more involved in these decisions as we plan out our town and how we want to grow into the future? Where is our vision, our leadership, our support for all the communities that make up our town? Over 40% of town residents are families of color — our neighboring city of Newburgh is rich with immigrant communities, but DHS is creating fear, not building community, and that is abhorrent to me.
Seventy percent of the occupants in DHS facilities across the country have no criminal convictions, and yet we are demonizing our neighbors, chasing them down in the streets, categorizing them as “undocumented immigrants” and arresting them for no reason but their skin color. I don’t want that terror on our streets. It is promoting racist violence.”
Unfortunately, your friends at The Monroe Gazette could not attend the rally on July 7. Some of you may recall, our car was destroyed. But you may have noticed Chester Town Supervisor Brandon Holdridge in the above pictures — the first one, behind the congressman.
We asked Supervisor Holdridge to comment on how the event went, given the vitriolic online attacks from critics claiming the protest in Newburgh was some kind of “communist” rally. Holdridge told us, “The protest at Newburgh against the rogue DHS agency was another show of strength and unity in the Hudson Valley against abuse, inhumane treatment, and authoritarianism. We are angry, but we are committed to showing it through civil disobedience as we did in my hometown of Chester earlier this year. DHS won’t last here for long; we will defeat them again.”
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What Comes Next
Councilmember Carolan shared with us, “Protesters were urged to call New York Attorney General Letitia James to express their desire not to have an ICE facility in our town and were also encouraged to gather outside Town Hall on Monday, July 13 at 5:30 p.m. to once again protest this facility and make the leaders accountable for how this will be handled.” The Attorney General’s office can be reached at 1-800-771-7755. You can, and should, also use this form to send Letitia James some feedback. (The Monroe Gazette can confirm the AG’s office is investigating the matter; however, we can’t promise she’ll get on this faster than the South Blooming Grove situation.)
Members of the community are encouraged to contact Town of Newburgh Clerk Lisa M. Vance-Ayers to ensure that this meeting will be held as scheduled, and — if you are a town resident — ask the clerk in advance if it’s possible to sign up for public comment. townclerk@townofnewburgh.org or 845-564-4554.
All members of the public are encouraged to attend the Town Board meeting, but we encourage you to reserve public comment time for town residents first before speaking if you are not a town resident.