NEW WINDSOR – When news broke of Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) leasing office space on Union Avenue in New Windsor, an already lava-like debate just got hotter. That boiled over Monday as a large group of protesters rallied outside the building with chants of keeping ICE not only out of Orange County, but out of the Hudson Valley.
ICE has an office in the Stewart Airport Industrial Park off Route 17K in the Town of Newburgh and this facility will be used to accommodate additional attorneys.
Poughkeepsie Alderman Daniel Atonna said ICE is building a network of terror in the region and nation.
“ICE is breaking down doors, smashing windows and executing people in the streets. They don’t care about human rights or the law,” said Daniel Atonna, an alderman from the City of Poughkeepsie. “They’re deporting kids with cancer. They have no humanity.”
He told the protestors who gathered outside the Union Avenue, New Windsor office that they oppose the contract with the Orange County Jail and plans to create a detention center in Chester.
This is just the start,” he said.
Though the New Windsor location has been operating as an administrative office only, Atonna has his doubts about how many more locations there could be and why it’s so important for people to take a stand against the agency.
Joining him at the protest, which was organized by the Mid-Hudson Valley Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), was City of Newburgh Councilwoman Giselle Martinez. Just as she did at a rally in Chester last month, Martinez adamantly opposed to ICE locating in Orange County and is not afraid of having her voice heard.
“I’m a first generation American and proud daughter of Mexican immigrants. I’m here to tell ICE to get the fu*k out,” Martinez shouted to a chorus of cheers. “For months they have been moving into this building secretively. That was not communicated with elected officials in New Windsor, Orange County and the Hudson Valley. In Chester they are making a private sale of a warehouse where they plan to package our community. That’s human beings. I’m here to protest ICE whether they are in the field or hiding in an administrative office.”
During a regularly scheduled meeting of the Orange County Legislature on February 5th, officials voted unanimously on a resolution opposing the potential ICE detention center in the Village of Chester.
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