“Over the past several months we have heard from residents who are living with real fear,” East Hampton Town Supervisor Kathee Burke-Gonzalez said at a town board meeting.
She was reading from a statement, before her board unanimously passed the East Hampton Public Safety and Accountability Law, known colloquially as Minerva’s Law, after Minerva Perez, the executive director of Organizacion Latino Americano.
The vote came after a public hearing last Thursday at which 24 residents spoke in favor of the legislation and none against.
The mood at the public hearing was an odd mixture of jubilation and sadness: jubilation that the law was being passed, sadness that it was necessary.
Speaker after speaker thanked the board and described the pride they felt as residents in a town where the local government was not afraid to stand up to some of the enforcement techniques currently being used by the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents.
OLA first contemplated the legislation this winter, after the aggressive deportation tactics of the second Trump Administration created chaotic scenes of community protest around the country. Two American citizens, Renee Good, on Jan. 7, and Alex Pretti, on Jan. 24, were shot and killed in Minneapolis by ICE agents.
The law makes clear the federal government has every right to enforce its laws but clarifies the role of local law enforcement when such actions occur.
For example, the legislation explicitly prohibits the town from either cooperating or participating in civil immigration enforcement with the federal government. Further, unless a judicial warrant is presented, no town personnel, nor town resources, can be used to help with federal immigration enforcement.
“I promise not to say, ‘Wahoo!’ every time I’m in this room and you do something I like,” said Susan Retzky, a member of the town’s Latino Advisory Committee, “but this is a ‘wahoo!’ law.”
Mary Bromley, an East Hampton psychotherapist, said, “I’m so proud that we are speaking out against a private army that is not part of our Police Department. We’re all crying in great emotional gratitude that this is our town standing up for something so important.”
Others spoke of anxiety and fear.
Jefferson Amado, in a statement read by a friend, said, “I have lived and worked in East Hampton for the past 18 years. This is where my mom, my dad, and I, built our home. I came here when I was 14 years old. This community welcomed me. It made me feel like I belonged, like I could have a fresh start, a better future.”
“Back then, my mom was fighting cancer,” he continued. “It was a very hard time for our family. My dad did everything he could to keep us going. He worked two, sometimes three jobs just to make sure we had what we needed and that my mom could get the care she needed. I can’t even imagine what our lives would have been like if on top of all of that, we had to live with the fear that my dad could be taken while going to work or that my mom could be taken while waiting for one of her doctor’s appointments. That kind of fear would have destroyed us.”
“This law not only strengthens the relationship between residents and the local law enforcement, it protects their constitutional rights,” said Karen Sanchez, a program manager with OLA. “It reinforces what makes this town strong. Right now, many immigrant families in our community are living with uncertainty and fear. Not because they’ve done something wrong, but because of the lack of transparency around enforcement actions.”
As part of the law, a 12-person task force, which includes the town supervisor and chief of police, will be appointed by the town board, and will meet to address community concerns and provide recommendations to the town board. The board must respond to any recommendations of the task force within 30 days.
The legislation also includes reporting requirements. If town police are called to respond to a federal immigration enforcement action, they must document the incident and notify the town supervisor within 24 hours. From there, the town supervisor must notify the town board within 24 hours and make any documents provided to the board public.
Because of many well-publicized incidents where federal immigration authorities have been masked and unidentified, the law enshrines with the town police the authority to request the name, agency affiliation, and badge number of any person engaged in immigration enforcement.
“I’ve lived in East Hampton since 1998,” said Alejandra Dubove. “I immigrated to this country 60 years ago. I never thought I’d live in a time period where I never leave my house without my passport. I never thought I’d live in my beautiful town where I’m at the gym but I’m looking at exits in case an ICE agent shows up, because the Y tends to be incredibly diverse. I never thought that we escaped Argentina because of fascism and now we’re living in this sort of awful situation.”
“I taught school for 35 years,” she continued. “I can’t even imagine what those kids go through in the morning. The stress, the fear of coming home and their parents being kidnapped.”
Pilar Moya-Mancera, executive director of Housing Help Inc., based in Riverhead, described the same situation.
“We had the case of a family where the kids went to school, came back, got off the bus, then went to the babysitter’s home, and the mother, a single mom, was actually taken by ICE that day. We got a call from the babysitter because she didn’t know what to do.”
Ms. Moya-Mancera said her organization offers family support for those experiencing housing instability. “It breaks my heart to tell you that in the past year, our clients are just not coming to the office. They are afraid,” she said.
Ms. Perez spoke toward the end of the hearing. “The beautiful stuff just breaks me, but for all the right reasons,” she said, staving off emotion. “You don’t have to be an immigrant or an undocumented recent immigrant to know that public safety matters and that all of us together make this place as beautiful as it is and prosperous and safe.”
The law will be automatically repealed on July 1, 2029.
