Organización Latino Americana promotes public safety law: Chief Read says local policy is best route

Can a policy be as effective as a law in protecting vulnerable residents from actions that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents could employ and have used in other communities around the country?

Police Chief Jim Read said he believes it can.

His words came after a meeting with Executive Director of the Organización Latino Americana (OLA of Eastern Long Island) Minerva Perez.

Ms. Perez met with the Town’s Public Safety Committee to talk about the current law the organization is proposing, acknowledging its wording today is different from what OLA put forth a few months ago. Some of the changes resulted from OLA discussions.

But two East End communities, East Hampton Town and East Hampton Village chose to incorporate Gov. Kathy Hochul’s (D) ban of cooperation with ICE, maintaining it would strengthen their stance against federal immigration practices.

Ms. Perez said the ban was never in OLA’s proposed law. Nothing in any of the iterations of the OLA proposed law speaks to banning any kind of cooperation with ICE, she said. The proposed law is about safety, not immigration, she said. In any of its versions, it never spoke to any bans, she told the committee.

The law was drafted by former Assemblyman Fred Thiele, who has worked closely with OLA.

There was early concern by some leaders of Eastern Long Island towns and villages that the initial proposal sounded like confrontation.

Adjustments to the law came about in an effort to clarify that OLA was never advocating confrontation with ICE. But tactics that have led to confrontations in other communities “does not mirror the calm, the order and the type of way that Shelter Island does its business, that the Police Department does its business,” Ms. Perez said.

If any chaos occurs, OLA’s efforts are that the Town has a plan in place “to protect some of the people that need to be protected,” Ms. Perez said. Among them are children, seniors, sick people, innocent people getting on or off ferries “who might freak out. They’re not Latinos or undocumented; they just want to know what’s happening.”

She pointed to an incident in Westhampton with a young man, a cancer survivor, who “freaked out and ran into one of the ICE vehicles. He left the scene; thank God we were able to make sure everything was clear,” Ms. Perez said. “He just panicked and he’s not even undocumented.”

Fear might keep children from going to school or others from entering a hospital if ICE is on the scene, she said.

“We’ve seen more and more of the raids and I don’t think they’re going away,” Ms. Perez said.

The community has to be ready if agents show up at sensitive areas such as the school or if a parent is rounded up by ICE and a child needs care, she said.

Another concern surfaced with a letter from Congressman Nick LaLota (R) warning East End community leaders that he would withhold federal earmark funding from those municipalities and any others who follow suit. He also referred to sanctuary policies — communities that have pledged to protect people from being arrested.

Ms. Perez said there’s nothing in the OLA proposal that touches that issue either.

As for earmark funding, it’s money a legislator can give to any project in his or her district that he or she chooses to fund.

Ms. Perez thinks the LaLota letter is not aimed at OLA legislation but she had not been able to speak with Mr. LaLota directly, she said.

Supervisor Amber Brach-Williams said she has been trying to reach Mr. LaLota but had not been able to do so at the time of the meeting with Ms. Perez.

As for the state ban, as with any legislation that comes from a higher level of government, whether federal, state or county takes precedence over what a local government might choose.

But that is a battle for the state, not OLA, Ms. Perez said.

For Ms. Perez, local enforcement is to care for “the most vulnerable among us.”

What concerned Chief Read is the positive relationships he and his officers have worked hard to develop with all segments of the community and he doesn’t want actions that would compromise that. He said his department policies are already in place without a law to protect people. What he doesn’t need, he said, is a law with a roadmap of what should be done when. Clear communications with the government, the school, the Senior Center, ferry officials and others are in place and once he has assessed a given situation, he is able to make decisions about what is needed to protect people on the Island.

There may be a need to address specifics and the Public Safety Task Force will be able to talk about any concerns that might need to adjusted.

But what he reads in the law is already in existence for the most part in his department’s policies, he said.