A Jefferson County community is reeling after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers removed eight people, including a mother and her three children, from a farm last week in Sackets Harbor, according to the New York Immigration Coalition advocacy group and others.
It happened in the hometown of President Trump’s Border Czar Tom Homan, leaving area residents with many questions.
Federal agents, while making a separate arrest, entered another home on the property without a judicial warrant when they discovered the mother and her kids.
The family was transported to an ICE detention facility in Karnes County, Texas. The three children were all students in the Sackets Harbor Central School District.
“Their friends are wondering where they are. Their teachers are distraught,” Sackets Harbor Central School District Superintendent Jennifer Gaffney said.
Gaffney said last Thursday, while executing an arrest warrant at North Harbor Dairy farm just outside of the village, immigration officials detained the woman and her three children.
“They were caught up in the crossfire of that,” she added.
Gaffney said the three kids are students in the district, a third-grader, a tenth-grader and an eleventh-grader.
“These kids are part of the fabric of our school community, their classmates, their friends. They are great students and we want them back here,” Gaffney added.
Gaffney released a statement Monday saying, "The safety and well-being of our students will always be our top priority, and we will leave no stone unturned in our efforts to ensure their return back home. We want them back in our classrooms as soon as possible."
While people at the school and in Jefferson County were still trying to learn exactly what happened that day and why, the New York Immigration Coalition said the family, the three children and their mother were wrongfully detained.
The coalition’s president said the family was correctly navigating the immigration system and attending their immigration court hearings, yet they are now in a detention center in Texas.
“We’re calling for an immediate release to them, to be sent back to New York and to be released their community that is rallying for them in this moment,” New York Immigration Coalition President and CEO Murad Awawdeh said.
One man started a rally Monday morning to voice his frustration.
“It upsets me to no end to think that this is what our country has come to,” Hounsfield resident Greg Castro said.
Castro first heard of the raid Monday morning, and he immediately took to the streets and even made a sign calling for the kids to be returned home.
"Those kids are going to be traumatized forever for this, you know? It's just, who's going to make it better for them? No one,” Castro added.
Spectrum News 1 has reached out to ICE and Trump administration "border czar" Tom Homan, but have not yet heard back.
A full rally is planned in Sackets Harbor at 2 p.m. Saturday. People can meet at the village’s welcome center. Organizers are calling for the rally to be peaceful.