Remembering the raid one year later
Mayor Nyce, raid victims, Island employers recall ICE action in Greenport
By Carol Galligan
Shelter Island Reporter
September 28, 2008
Last spring and fall, agents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, often referred to as ICE, conducted raids across Long Island, hitting both Nassau and Suffolk counties. Last September 27 they arrested over 100 people on the North Fork. The raid had impacts on the Greenport Latino population, workers and employers on Shelter Island and local governments, as remembered one year later in this last installment of the Reporter’s series on life in the Latino community.
David Nyce, Greenport’s mayor, said he was taken aback by the event, and knew nothing about it until it happened. “It was a federal raid,” he said, “and the local police department is obligated to participate, even though it’s in conflict with their wish to keep people safe. It went down at five in the morning. They came in and the feds are yelling ‘Police’ and people opened their doors thinking it was local and it was ICE.”
The mayor went on to say that he and Southold Police Chief Carlyle “Ty” Cochran had worked very hard to build good relationships with the Latino community. Because Latinos are often the victims of crime, if they are afraid to report them, that represents a major problem. “In Greenport,” he said, “they are nearly 20 percent of the population. If they choose not to cooperate with the police department because they don’t trust them, then it affects everyone.
That’s a large percentage of the population not to be cooperative.”
According to sources within the Southold Police Department, ICE came with warrants for four men (although warrants are not legally required), all wanted for felony offenses in addition to being illegal. In Greenport they arrested 12. Only one, suspected of gang affiliations, was among the four wanted. The additional 11 were illegal and unlucky.
On that early morning after the raid, when housekeepers, yard men, restaurant workers and the employees of many Island businesses came across on the ferry, their terror came with them. Much of what Islanders were told, and much of what was believed by their employees, turned out to be hearsay, rumor and untrue. But they said the emotions were real — the fear was pervasive. “They arrested hundreds of people.” Untrue. “They took women away from their children.” Untrue. “They broke down doors.” True. “They had guns drawn.” True.
http://www2.timesreview.com/SIR/stories/I-raid-09-252008-09-25T08-32-42
