BY: Keith S. Shikowitz, Editor in Chief/Investigative Reporter
When Ice first proposed placeing a detention center in the Orange County Town of Chester NY, the Town Supervisor Brandon Holdridge told me that they had passed a resolution opposing the locating of a US ICE processing or detention facility in warehouses within the Town and/or Village of Chester.
Holdridge explained the process of opposing this situation. “We submitted a letter on January 16th, the day of the deadline of ICE’s and the DHS’s, Notice of activity responses to submit responses to them regarding whether or not there were concerns or opposition. The Town of Chester, along with the Village of Chester and Orange County, all submitted letters of opposition on the 16th to DHS, and then last night we passed a resolution just reaffirming our opposition.”
He added that they didn’t say anything, that wasn’t already stated in the letter from the 16th, but they just wanted to reaffirm it and put it in a formal resolution, which we passed last night, that’s going to be sent to DHS and all of our, state, local, and federal representatives for, Chester, New York, and then on top of that we passed the, resolution in support of the New York MELT Act.
The MELT Act is a proposed legislation in front of the New York State legislature that basically states that any law enforcement in New York State besides SWAT tactical teams and other special operations units would have to be identifiable. They can’t be wearing plain clothes for no reason, and they have to be identifiable with their name or some other identifier, and they shouldn’t be masked. They should not be covering their faces so they can escape accountability for any reasons.
The contradiction to this legislation is the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution that state governments can’t dictate to the federal government how to do operations. I asked him how that is going to fly based on that?
He responded, “That would be a question for an attorney. There’s legislation in front of the New York State Legislature, so, I imagine they have some leeway over or authority over what happens in the State of New York.
So perhaps they don’t, or perhaps it’s more symbolic than anything, but I think it’s important for us to make our stance known as to how we want law enforcement to conduct themselves here in Chester and in New York.”
Since January 30 when this situation came to being word got out that ICE HAD BOUGHT a Pep Boys building and was setting up a detention center there.
I spoke again with Supervisor Holdridge and here is how the interview went:
ICE purchased a Pep Boys facility for its detention center. This was after you put your letter and passed a resolution opposing this. Yet it seems that apparently the federal government went around you is putting it anyway. What are you going to do about this? Are you going to do anything about it? Can you do anything about it?
“Yeah, so there was reporting yesterday that they haven’t purchased the building yet. They’ve retracted a statement made by an ICE representative that they had purchased it, so now they’re retracting that and saying that they haven’t purchased it yet. I still feel like I still feel they’re going to continue to pursue the purchase anyway. I think somebody just jumped the gun and they are going to purchase it eventually, but we’re going to continue to fight it in a, a few different ways. ”
His method of fighting this is he has directed, anybody following his social media pages, to email the brokers and realtors that are involved with the deal to tell them to kill it or to leave and, not be a part of it at the very least. He’s also in discussions with the Village of Chester and Orange County about initiating some sort of legal challenges, either now or when they purchased the building. Yet he’s not sure what would be the best situation there.
“We still haven’t had a meeting yet, but The Village of Chester and the and Orange County would have more standing to initiate a legal proceeding. The Town of Chester doesn’t have direct jurisdiction over the over the site, so it would be the Village of Chester and Orange County. We certainly can sign on to a legal challenge because we are going to be affected no matter what, but It’d be better for one of those two entities or both of them to initiate some sort of legal challenge in the in the in the near future. ”
The question is what type of legal challenge could they mount? I mean, you’ve got the Article 6 federal supremacy Clause that would allow this to take place and a number of things that they can throw back at you. What type of challenge, what type of legal challenge could be mounted based on Article 6 alone, never mind anything else.
“Yeah, I’m not really sure how to answer that with certainty. There’s a lot of environmental concerns. There are, you know, infrastructure concerns, and then, of course, there’s, economic and humanitarian concerns. So, there’s a few things, and that’s why, like I said, I’m trying to get a meeting together between the three entities to discuss all of these, so we can look at our options, if there are any, and then utilize those options, but right now I’m not really sure what they are and how to move forward. You might be right. There may not be a way to challenge them legally speaking, but, I’m not sure yet. ”
One thing that Holdridge will not do is back down and is not willing to just lie down and take it. He would like to discuss all of their options before we make decisions on how to move forward.
“You miss all the shots that you never shoot. If you don’t try the answer’s automatically no. Yeah, I mean, but if all the attorneys in the room all agree that there’s no way to legally challenge, there’s no standing, then you know, that’s that, and then the only other options we have is public pressure and protesting, so that’s what’s going to inevitably happen either way.
Does he think that protesting will stop any Federal government action that hasn’t stopped anywhere else in the country.
“Well, we’ve seen other facilities just recently, a facility, a planned facility in Texas, is no longer in the conversation because enough people contacted the owner of the current warehouse and convinced them not to sell to the government. That right there is a clear example of public pressure affecting real change. The protesting in Minneapolis, I believe, had something to do with them drawing down the amount of ICE agents in the area there. Protesting is a fundamental right, and it’s something that people in this country have used to great effect throughout history. It’s how the American Revolution started. It’s how we got civil rights. It’s how many things came about in the United States of America. So it’s going to happen and if it’s the only other option that we all have, then that’s definitely going to be something that people take. ”
As Tom Hoeman said the reason that ICE and Border patrol officers were pulled out of Minnesota was the fact that the government agreed to allow them to take the, criminal aliens that they’ve got in the jails from the jails and that had to go searching the neighborhoods for them, which meant they did not have to have so many, agents around to go after them. If they can get them out of the jails, then there’s no need to have so many agents.
It makes it a lot safer for everybody, and they don’t have to go around the towns and what what’s been said is frightening people and terrorizing people, Because they’re not going into the towns, they’re getting right out of the jails. So, there were deals made, not just a matter of the protests, but you can’t just say the protests.
“All I was saying is that the protest, I’m sure the protest had something to do with it. I mean, there was a lot of negative and bad press that was coming from the federal response, so I have to imagine the protests played a part. Again, it doesn’t even matter if it did play a part or not. If that’s the only other option that people are left with, it’s inevitably going to happen. So you would hope that it would from my, from my personal viewpoint, I would hope that would have some sort of effect on the decision-making in the federal government, but you never know. ”
They might have a town hall on this issue after they have their private meetings with the lawyers and other governments in Orange County affected by this. “We’re still trying to get our ducks in a row here, so, well, if you, maybe a town, maybe a town hall will be in the works for a later date. ”