It has been troubling to follow the news of the flurry of executive orders–everything from firing federal workers, freezing federal funding of research, creating national language policy, reducing protections on national monuments and parks, and the ever constant threat of immigration policy changes. Since the beginning of the year, thousands of deportations and detainments have denied people of due process, targeted people for their free speech, and changed the legal status of so many groups of people.
The stories of these detainments and deportations have weighed heavy on my mind (and what it means for the United States). Just off the top of my head: a father dropping his child off at school was taken into custody, a child born in the U.S. still receiving treatment for a brain tumor was deported with her parents, a mother who worked on a dairy farm and her three children were taken by ICE, thousands of student visas were indiscriminately revoked and international students are being held in detention centers in Louisiana, people accused of being gang members for what seem to be sentimental tattoos and sent to a for-profit mega prison in another country admittedly by mistake, immigration agents breaking car windows to take people into custody, breastfeeding mothers separated from their babies, and even a Canadian entrepreneur who was trying to renew a work visa spent two weeks in detention facilities. And, just a few days ago, a mother taken from her newborn while her older daughters and neighbors tried to circle around her. There seemed to be no good news and I did not know what to say.
Ij jar wōt bwe Anij enaaj kajimweik aolep bwōd wōt ilo mour in im kōjparok im kōkajurḷọk wōt ro rej pād ilo kalbuuj kiiō. Im ij kamool Anij bwe there have been a couple times when right has prevailed.
Last month, in the early morning of March 27, dozens of federal immigration agents raided a dairy farm in Upstate New York. In front of the farm is a sign that says “MAKE MILK GREAT AGAIN.” A mother and her three children were taken into ICE custody as ICE had continued to search the farm and detain other people after arresting the man for who they had the warrant.
The children attended Sackets Harbor Central School, a small school of 400 students. A teacher who tutored one of the teenagers had arrived at the family’s home to pick the student up and noticed a large ICE presence. The teacher was in tears when they called the school principal with the news. The students had expressed fear of deportation before, and teachers had reassured them they’d be safe — that ICE went after criminals, not children. They were wrong.
The principal and several teachers launched what became a days-long, town-wide effort to secure the release of the children and their mother. That weekend, after using ICE’s online detainee locator system, the teachers found that the students had been transferred to a family detention center in Texas. Another teacher began to receive daily calls from the eldest student who had been detained. The student admitted she and her family were terrified of being deported.
Though Trump had won in this small town by double digits in the 2024 election, most people united in condemning the detention of the children. Thousands of people protested in the hometown of Tom Homan, Trump’s former “border czar,” the person who had designed the family separation policy of Trump’s first administration.
Jaime Cook, principal of Sackets Harbor School District, wrote an impassioned letter to the community pleading for the safe return of the 3rd, 10th, and 11th graders and their mother. In the letter, Cook wrote that the family had declared themselves to immigration judges, were attending court on their assigned dates and had been following the legal process. The community rallied in support and two days after the protest, the family was released on April 8.
Migrant and immigrant workers keep our farms running. They are essential to the local food production of the country. Just five years ago, President Trump, during his first administration, issued an executive order to keep meatpacking plants open during the onset of the covid-19 pandemic when hundreds of meatpacking workers fell sick from the coronavirus that was spreading through their plants and communities. If we needed them then, we still need them now.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/04/10/immigration-ice-detention-kids
https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/08/us/mother-children-detained-ice-new-york/index.html
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