KINGSTON – Michele Hirsch, the newly named majority leader of the Kingston Common Council, invoked her family’s history as Holocaust survivors while addressing dozens of peaceful protesters gathered for a candlelight “Vigil to End State Violence” in Midtown Kingston Thursday evening.
“If my family hadn’t been allowed into this country, I wouldn’t be standing here today,” Hirsch (D-Ward 9) said, drawing applause from the crowd assembled at Post Office Park.
Participants formed a semicircle in the park as candles flickered in the winter air. Many held signs reading “No More ICE,” “Impeach Trump,” and “Abolish ICE.”
Standing out in the cold, rally attendees used their First Amendment rights peacefully to protest the Trump administration’s immigration policies and the ICE-related shooting death of Renee Nicole Goode, 37, of Minneapolis.
Speakers repeatedly cited the Minnesota killing as emblematic of what they described as a broader pattern of state violence fueled by federal immigration enforcement. “Everyone tells me, Rene Good looks like someone they know. She looks like us. She looks like our sister. She looks like our mother. She looks like our daughter. Any time it could be one of us. And we are not going to allow this ever to happen here and try to stop it everywhere,” Hirsch told the rally.
“We need to stop the Ice facility from coming into Orange County. We need the ICE facility in the Orange County Jail to be shut down. We want them gone. Get out of our town. Get out of our cities,” said Hirsch.
Others raised concerns that the U.S. is becoming a police state since the Department of Homeland Security already put Goods in the wrong and are refusing to allow the state of Minnesota to do its own investigation.
Jim Polson of Woodstock criticized the law enforcement encounter that led to Good’s death, saying, “That was the stupidest car stop I’ve ever seen. It was totally bad. They put themselves in danger. They should both be thrown in jail forever.”
Several speakers tied their criticism directly to the Trump administration, accusing it of undermining constitutional protections through aggressive immigration enforcement, the use of masked agents, and cooperation between federal and local authorities.
“Eternal shame on Donald Trump, Republican politicians and any Democratic politicians who don’t support abolishing ICE,” Victor Cueva, executive director of Ulster Immigrant Defense Network. “If hatred is being institutionalized, then we have to institutionalize solidarity and compassion,” Cuerva said.
“We stand against our immigrant community and we stand against ICE,” said Ulster County Executive Jen Metzger.
Assemblymember Sarahana Shrestha, a Democrat who immigrated to the U.S. in 2001 and became a citizen in Ulster County in 2021, urged sustained commitment. “It is difficult. It’s not just the politics, it is the culture,” Shrestha said.
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