Opinions on encounters between North Plymouth residents and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents dominated an emotionally charged Select Board session at Cold Spring Elementary School Tuesday evening.
In all, 18 residents spoke about whether the board should take a formal position in response to ICE detentions of immigrants, with most of them decrying the federal agents’ aggressive actions.
Anne Franzino, a member of Together We Can, a group that works to support immigrants, asked the board to take a stand against ICE raids.
“ICE has targeted long-time resident immigrant families, particularly in North Plymouth,” Franzino said. “We are witnessing trauma caused by unprecedently violent enforcement aimed at non-criminal hard-working people.”
Lori Fitzpatrick, a North Plymouth resident who works with immigrant children and donors – many of them from Brazil – as an occupational therapist at Cold Spring, reported that families hide in closets and under beds when ICE is active in Plymouth. She reported mass disenrollment at Cold Spring and Hedge elementary schools amid what she called a “mass exodus back to Brazil.”
Fitzpatrick did not offer any numbers.
“They are hard-working individuals and active long-standing members of the Plymouth community that deserve to be heard,” Fitzpatrick said of the town’s Brazilian community. “We urge you as our elected leaders to bring a voice to the voiceless and set limits on how ICE operates in our town.”
Joanne Oscar, a parent of two Plymouth Public Schools children, reported that in a meeting at Hedge in September, she learned from principal Kristin Wilson that 26 immigrant children were absent from the school that day.
“She revealed to us that immigrant families are frightened and many are fleeing back to Brazil, back to a country most of our immigrant children do not call home,” Oscar said. “The United States is their home and in most cases is the only home they’ve ever known.”
Wilson confirmed in an email Wednesday that more than 20 students were out on the day Wilson referenced.
In October 2024, Plymouth Public Schools had 422 English Learner students, Superintendent Christopher Campbell said in an email Wednesday. By June, that number was down to 369, he said. Discounting 16 who graduated, that left a loss of 37 students.
Both Hedge and Cold Spring have lost students overall this year, Campbell said. In October 2024, Hedge had 210 students. That number was 188 in October of 2025.
Cold Spring’s population fell from 214 students to 200 over the same period.
Several speakers brought up the detention of Brazilian resident David De Paula Souza in the middle of an intersection in front of the Hedge school on Sept. 23 and the emotional impact it had on students on a school bus who witnessed him being pulled out of his car by federal agents.
De Paula Souza remains in ICE detention in Louisiana. Franzino said at Tuesday’s meeting that he had lost an appeal of his deportation, but since ICE misplaced his passport, Brazil will not take him back. ICE said it could not comment on his situation without his date of birth and alien registration number.
Not all speakers were critical of ICE.
Tim Shobbrook, a first-generation American, called ICE agents “dedicated professionals” in Plymouth who are simply enforcing immigration judges’ deportation orders.
“The issue we’re talking about is illegal aliens,” Shobbrook said. “All of them break federal law either for visa overstays, illegally crossing the border – dangerously, I might add – not registering with the federal government, which is required by law. Most are involved with identity theft because they need it for working purposes, and most of all, they defy federal judges’ orders to deport.”
While Tuesday’s meeting at the Cold Spring school was held to hear residents’ concerns, Select Board Chair David Golden said the board will take up what, if anything, to do about ICE operations at its Jan. 6 meeting.
Board member Kevin Canty is drawing up a proposed policy to be considered at that meeting.
Canty, who is North Plymouth resident, also spoke passionately about the issue during Tuesday’s meeting.
“I am very concerned about the manner and means with which ICE is conducting its activity,” he said, pointing out that the board has no control over ICE’s enforcement of federal law.
“But the manner and means with which they go about it is significantly undermining public safety within this community, causing fear and disruption,” Canty continued. “It is the kind of brazen conduct that if we say nothing then that silence speaks volumes because history has demonstrated that while it is easy to ostracize a group and to leave them out of the conversation, to treat them as lesser, it never stops there and that if you don’t stand up for the weakest people in your society, then you don’t really stand up for anyone because it’s very easy to start dehumanizing categories of human beings.”
Board member Deb Iaquinto, who has taught immigrant English learners in Plymouth, Kingston, and Hanover, also emphasized that the main issue is not ICE enforcing the law, but how its agents treat residents in the process.
“No one is trying to block ICE,” said Iaquinto. “We’re just trying to bring some dignity and respect to the process.”
Fred Thys can be reached at fred@plymouthindependent.org