CHESTER – State Senator Michelle Hinchey (D, Saugerties) is the latest local public official in the Hudson Valley to oppose the proposed ICE processing center at the former Pep Boys warehouse in the Town of Chester.
Hinchey’s call comes following the killing of American citizen Renee Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis.
A bipartisan coalition of national, state and local leaders and residents say the plan should not move forward.
“The ‘warehousing’ language used by your agency to describe the detainment of human beings, and the subsequent mission proposal, is dehumanizing, abhorrent, and signals clearly the way your administration views American citizens and immigrants alike,” Hinchey wrote in a letter to ICE officials. “Threating human beings with the same ‘efficiency standards’ as Amazon packages, as described by your own leadership, is morally bankrupt and has no place in our communities.”
Hinchey also said the proposal removes an industrial property from the tax rolls and would “overwhelm local emergency services and first responders.”
The state senator said the ICE effort “to normalize horrific acts of violence, including the murder of Renee Nicole Good and dismiss due process, entirely undermines the rule of law and the principles that have sustained
American democracy for 250 years.”
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