We think it is unfortunate that the Select Board did not pass an ICE policy for all officials and employees of the Town of Plymouth as Select Board member [Kevin] Canty initially had proposed Tuesday night. This proposal is well within the purview of the elected Select Board members, and it is a shame that Canty did not stand his ground with his own proposal at the meeting.
Police Chief [Dana] Flynn indicated that Plymouth Police Department policy, consistent with the 2017 SJC ruling in Commonwealth v. Lund, is non-cooperation with ICE unless required by law. This is very much in line with Canty’s proposal as many Select Board members noted. Meanwhile, many of the opponents of Canty’s proposal seemed to think it challenged the chief’s authority. Unfortunately, Canty did not clear up this misunderstanding.
The Police Department is charged with enforcement of the law, not crafting the laws and policies we live by. The initial policy proposed by Canty was broader in scope because as he indicated Tuesday night, the policy was written to include all town officials and employees, not just Police Department personnel. We were also dismayed that Chairperson [David] Golden was ready to just shelve this proposal without a vote or an action step after hearing from many town residents who supported the policy of noncooperation with ICE. Thankfully, his decision was overridden by the board.
Since I, [Larry Hartenian] was present at the meeting and was next to speak before the Select Board cut off public comments, I would like to present our thoughts.
Trump’s immigration policy is racist. He persistently describes immigrants coming into the country across the southern border as rapists, criminals, killers, gangbangers, garbage, not human, illegal monsters, prison escapees, vermin, etc. Indeed, the document “Chronicling 25 Years of Violations: ICE Detention at Plymouth County Correctional Facility” (2024) informs us, “Those detained are overwhelmingly low-income immigrants of color from Central America, South America, and the Caribbean, as well as African, Asian, and Eastern European immigrants in smaller numbers.” Meanwhile, Trump talks of his yearning for immigrants from Norway (i.e. whites) and offers special refugee status to white South Africans.
We oppose ICE because ICE is the agency carrying out Trump’s racist immigration policies. We also oppose ICE because of how it does this. It snatches suspected undocumented immigrants off the street, out of their cars or out of their beds; ICE agents are dressed in plain clothes or in military gear, masked, and without badges. They are heavily armed and threaten their suspects with their weapons, they box-in their cars, break their car windows and yank them out of their vehicles – or shoot them in their vehicles as happened Wednesday in Minneapolis – accost them with tear gas or pepper spray, cuff them, drag them across the pavement, kneel on their neck. They break down doors, smash up furniture, and forcibly take residents outside. They make children stand out in the rain in their underwear, or naked, and witness the brutal seizure of a parent. They do all of this without presenting court warrants.
ICE operates with persistent and gross violations of due process. They are not educated or trained to “police” the way our police officers are. Violence, intimidation and fostering fear is what they do; it is what they are meant to do.
As for the claims that ICE is going after the “worst of the worst”, a source from the CATO Institute stated that “Just 5 percent of people detained by ICE since October 1 have had violent criminal convictions, three quarters had no criminal convictions at all. Most ‘criminals’ had immigration, traffic, and vice offenses.” “Nearly 43 percent did not even have criminal charges.”
At Tuesday night’s meeting many residents opposed to the proposal chided the Select Board to “just focus on the budget.” But it is taxpayer money, our money, that is funding ICE. With an annual budget of almost $28 billion and a plan to hire an additional 10,000 agents, ICE was gifted an additional $45 billion by the Republicans’ “Big Beautiful Bill” for new detention centers. Meanwhile US poverty is rising, businesses are closing, and our basic services are not able to be funded. This racist bullying of our residents is taking needed money out of our pockets. We can do both: be moral persons and pay attention to the budget.
As noted at the outset, from our perspective the evening ended unsatisfactorily, with Canty sidelining his own proposal, and the Select Board embracing the chief’s policy along with an agreement for annual review.
Despite all the praise for the chief, we feel that it is the proper role for the Select Board to make policy in a case like this, and for the Police Department to enforce the policy. Beyond this, in light of the racist immigration policy of the Trump administration and the egregious behavior of ICE in Plymouth and around the country, it is essential for the town to adopt an official policy to reassure all residents of where it stands and to signal to the Administration in Washington that while the Town will follow federal law, it will not participate in racist, violent ICE activities.
In closing, we still have hope for our democracy based on the thoughtful, intelligent, compassionate comments of many of the residents and the engaging democratic process Tuesday night, with free speech being guarded by Chair Golden for most of those wanting to give comments.
It is imperative that all of us do everything we can to keep all our residents safe and insist on due process from all officers of the law, including ICE, at all times.
– Larry Hartenian and Patty Kean