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A mother and her three children who were taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents as part of a sweep in the tiny hometown of the Trump administration’s “border czar”, Tom Homan, have been released following days of outcry from community figures, advocates and protesters calling for their freedom.
Over the weekend, about a thousand protesters marched outside of Homan’s home in a small New York village, calling for the release of the family after they were detained last month. The family has not been named or spoken out publicly.
Jaime Cook, principal of the Sackets Harbor school district where the children reportedly attended class, wrote a letter to the community pleading for the students’ safe return.
She described the students as having “no ties to criminal activity” and that they are “loved in their classrooms”.
“We are in shock,” the letter reads. “And it is that shared shock that has unified our community in the call for our students’ release.”
The family was taken into custody in a 27 March raid at a large dairy farm in the remote town that has a population of fewer than 1,500 in Jefferson county in north-western New York state, on Lake Ontario near the Canadian border. The target of the raid was reportedly a South African national charged with trafficking in child sexual abuse material, whom they apprehended, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents said.
But authorities separately picked up and detained the family, as well as three other immigrants they said were without documentation. The family was moved to the Karnes county immigration processing center, a privately run detention facility in Texas, by 30 March.
Cook’s letter said that the family had declared themselves to immigration judges, were attending court on their assigned dates and had been following the legal process.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said the children are aged nine, 15 and 18. The New York branch of the advocacy group called the detentions “outrageous” and their release “a huge relief”.
The release of the family was confirmed on Monday by local officials, school administrators, and the New York governor, Kathy Hochul.
Hochul said in a statement that she had direct confirmation from Homan that “this family – a third grader, two teenagers and their mother - are currently on their way back to Jefferson county. I cannot imagine the trauma these kids and their mom are feeling, and I pray they will be able to heal when they return home.”
The protests were organized with the help of the Jefferson county committee of the Democratic Party. Corey Decillis, committee chair, told NBC News these raids “occur right in the last 60 days across the country, but when it happens in your backyard, I think that’s what garners people’s attention.”
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An ACLU statement said: “While agents were conducting a raid on the farm, they entered another home on the property without a judicial warrant and detained a mother and three children, aged 9, 15, and 18. The family was subsequently transferred thousands of miles away, to a detention facility in Texas. Today, after mounting public pressure and a historic rally in Sackets Harbor on Saturday, Ice released the family, who are now on their way home.”
The New York Civil Liberties Union issued its own statement saying the level of “inhumanity and cruelty” in this raid and others like them sends shockwaves through society.
“The outrageous events of the past week do make one thing clear, when people in every corner of New York see the real, human impact of Ice’s cruelty and Trump’s mass deportation machine, they mobilize, speak out and fight back,” the NYCLU’s senior education strategist, Margaret Tso said.
She added: “At the rally on Saturday in Sackets Harbor, I saw dozens of teachers, families, organizers, and residents from all over marching together, chanting the same thing: ‘Bring this family back home to our community where they belong.’ Families shouldn’t be torn apart, kids shouldn’t be ripped out of class, and people shouldn’t be transported thousands of miles from their home. Trump and Ice must stop terrorizing immigrant families – and New Yorkers must keep fighting back.”
Nina Lakhani contributed reporting
