Tensions ran high between legislators and immigration protestors at the county’s Legislative Town Hall meeting on July 28.
Following Assemblywoman Michaelle Solages and State Sen. Julia Salazar’s visit to the Nassau County Correctional Center in East Meadow on July 23, County Legislator Carrié Solages invited the public to attend the town hall and “speak out against Bruce Blakeman for using our local police force to help ICE.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has detained more than 1,400 New Yorkers at the East Meadow facility over the past five months through an agreement with County Executive Bruce Blakeman, according to a July 22 news release from Salazar.
The county’s handling of the deportation of undocumented immigrants was the focus of the roughly 90-minute meeting.
Long Island Immigration Justice Alliance member Cheryl Keshner said she has been an activist for over 30 years.
“I'm here, and as are many others, dressed in white to show solidarity with our immigrant neighbors who have been detained, deported and disappeared,” she said. “These are not criminals or terrorists, as President Trump and County Executive Blakeman would have us believe. They are our neighbors, our friends, our family, our co-workers.”
Among the speakers was Jorge Meija, who spoke with the aid of a translator, describing how his family was affected by deportations. His son, Fernando Meija-Flores, was recently detained despite a severe liver condition requiring medical attention and allegedly kept in inhumane conditions, according to immigration activist Sonia Arora. The Meija family is still looking for answers about where Fernando is being transferred to next, she said.
“As a clergy person, I am in the business of morality,” Rabbi Ariel Naveh, formerly of the Temple B’nai Torah in Wantagh. “I'm going to be really blunt here, there is absolutely nothing moral about colluding with an agency that has been terrorizing our neighbors and fellow islanders by literally disappearing their family members.”
Susan Steinmann, a representative from the Poor People’s Campaign, noted that the presence of undocumented workers helps Long Island’s economy.
“We are not a safer Long Island if we deport half our workforce,” she said. “Our workforce helps our small businesses, the small Spanish businesses and other businesses that revitalize Long Island.
“In Nazi Germany, and I'm half Jewish, so the Holocaust means a great deal to me,” Steinmann continued, “people pretended they didn't hear the cattle cars going by. People pretended they didn't smell the stench coming out of the smoke stacks.”
The Legislature’s presiding officer, Howard Kopel, who represents the Five Towns, an area with a large Jewish population, interrupted Steinman.
“You're half Jewish, I'm full Jewish,” he said. “You don’t like what they’re doing —”
The rest of Kopel’s words were drowned out by voices from the public. As frustrations appeared to rise, Kopel paused the meeting until all members of the public were quiet again.
Besides immigration, some speakers such as Sean Cirillo challenged Nassau County’s status as one of the safest counties in the country.
“Long Island as a whole has an above average pedestrian fatality rate compared to the rest of New York State,” he said. “The county executive held a press conference promising increased resources to protect swimmers after a single shark bite incident, yet I don't hear anything about the 75 traffic related deaths Nassau averages every year… Are these deaths just considered acceptable?”
Claudia Borecky, director of the South Shore Women’s Alliance, raised her own safety concerns in a letter provided to the legislature, focusing on the effect deportations have on the public psyche.
“People are living in fear of sending their children to school, going to work, food pantries and public places,” she wrote. In the letter, she requested that the county “shut its internment camp in East Meadow,” ban law enforcement from wearing masks, and convene hearings to address concerns from members of the public.
As of press time, Kopel and Blakeman did not respond to the Herald’s requests for comment.
