Politics & Government
Another ICE Arrest Reported In Essex County; List Of Local Seizures Grows
This suburb isn't the only Essex County town that has recently gotten visit from ICE.
ESSEX COUNTY, NJ — Federal immigration agents took a person into custody in South Orange on Thursday, a local official says.
South Orange Mayor Sheena Collum released details about the encounter in a social media post.
Collum said ICE apprehended the person on South Kingman Road between 2 and 2:30 p.m.
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“As with the last time this occurred, the ICE Field Office confirmed only that an individual had been taken into custody and provided no further details,” Collum reported.
“However, we were able to identify the registered owner of the vehicle, which turned out to be a resident of Paterson,” she added. “I spoke with Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh, alerted him to what had occurred, and he immediately began following up with his team.”
Find out what's happening in South Orangefor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Collum said local community members leaped into action after learning about the incident, putting money into the detainee’s commissary account and offering them legal aid.
“I want to thank all the neighbors in Tuxedo Park who sprang into action and notified me of what happened,” Collum said. “Saying something when you see something is what enables our community to jump into action, and that is exactly what happened here.”
ICE IN SOUTH ORANGE-MAPLEWOOD
In August, federal immigration agents arrested four people in the South Orange-Maplewood area, including two roofers, a handyman and the sous chef at a local restaurant.
>> RELATED: ICE Arrests Roofers, Chef, Handyman In SOMA
Both towns have passed local laws regarding ICE activity within their borders.
The South Orange Board of Trustees and village president passed a resolution in 2017 that declares the township a “sanctuary city.” Among other provisions, the resolution states that no municipal employees – including police – can “enforce federal immigration law, nor help facilitate ICE deportations, except where legally required to do so.”
Meanwhile, Maplewood passed two ordinances that limit local cooperation with ICE in July. Under the Maplewood Immigrant Trust Act, agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal immigration authorities are prohibited from conducting enforcement raids and operations on township-owned property without a court warrant. Federal authorities are also prevented from accessing municipal databases unless they have a warrant.
ICE IN ESSEX COUNTY
South Orange and Maplewood aren’t the only Essex County towns that have seen visits from ICE in recent months.
In July, several landscapers were arrested on Rutgers Street and Van Reyper Place in Belleville. Each was accused of being “unlawfully present in the United States.”
Federal immigration agents made appearances in the Bloomfield-Montclair area in September, detaining four people on Elm Street near Bloomfield Avenue in Montclair.Another ICE appearance took place on the morning of Aug. 19, when two employees at Raymond’s on Church Street in Montclair were among six people who were detained by federal immigration agents. The workers were reportedly on the way to their jobs at the time.
Last week, federal immigration agents detained someone near an elementary school in Bloomfield, setting off a temporary shelter-in-place until the situation cleared.
Several high-profile arrests have also taken place in the state’s largest city, Newark – which also saw an ICE-related car chase last winter.
Homeland Security officials, including Secretary Markwayne Mullin, have insisted that ICE is going after some of the “worst of the worst” criminals in the nation.
“Every day, the patriots of ICE are working to target the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens from our country,” he said Thursday, sharing a list of recent arrests that have been taking place across the U.S.
Advocates and family members of ICE detainees have pushed back against the claim that most of them are “criminals,” however.
Earlier this year, data research organization Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse reported that out of 60,311 people held in ICE detention across the nation, about 70.8 percent had no criminal conviction before being apprehended – and many of those who do were convicted only of minor offenses such as traffic violations.
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