THIS M❤️CHINE MELTS 🧊
Why I am petitioning my local police to reverse their 287(g) partnership with ICE
I was raised in a tradition that taught me to welcome the stranger, not vilify them. I don’t know what tradition backs the “mass deportation” movement, but it isn’t Christianity. Or Judaism. Or Islam. Or Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Paganism, or any number of other faith traditions from across the globe that treat the stranger as a guest, an extension of oneself, a “letter from God,” a neighbor.
What I do know is that fear and hatred of the stranger motivated one of my Chester neighbors to threaten to run me over with their GMC Jimmy because I’m protesting our local police department’s agreement to work with ICE. Fear and hatred of the stranger were behind one online poster’s suggestion that second amendment remedies and target practice will keep us safe. Fear and hatred are the basis of claims that “THEY” don’t belong here, that this is “OUR” town. Based on those and so many other examples from the past month or so, I know fear and hatred of the stranger are alive and well in Chester. But so is compassion.
I know this because despite heinous online harassment and real-world threats, my neighbors in town have been adding their names to a petition I’m circulating in opposition to the ICE partnership, and have been sending letters to our Chief of Police and Selectboard. I know this because every week I receive messages from folks who urge me to continue on, who tell me I’m doing the right thing, who speak up because their sense of compassion is stronger than their worry. (I got another message while I was drafting this letter.) It is easy to stay focused on the fear and threats, so I carry with me a small, red, crocheted “melt the ICE” hat given to me by someone who shares my belief that the heart is a machine that melts ICE.
The reasons I’ve suggested for reversal of the ICE agreement are many. The petition argues we should maintain local control and local focus for our local police. It argues we should stand strong on principles of due process and other civil rights for everyone who passes through our town. It argues we should ward off liability for individual officers and the town for potential violations of those rights. It argues for compassion for our neighbors, regardless of their immigration status.
When introducing the 287(g) ICE partnership agreement to the Selectboard at the end of April this year, our Chief of Police made it clear what the motivation was: “If we’re already doing it, might as well get some money from it.” The money in question would include payment to cover the cost of purchasing a new vehicle for the department’s fleet. It would cover a portion of the costs to train our local officers and upgrade technology for information-sharing with ICE. In an environment and during a time when town budgets are tight and property owners are loath to take on higher property taxes, the Selectboard indicated support for the agreement. They didn’t vote on it, though, because they have no say over the 287(g) agreement after Gov. Ayotte signed SB62 into law last year.
At a time when ICE has received $144.5B over its nearly $11B annual budget (that’s like getting 13 years of regular appropriations in just one year), the agency has proven to be reckless and unaccountable:
standards are lower for new recruits and training is deficient;
technology like body-cams are not in use;
databases are being used to track people engaged in protected 1st Amendment protest;
those same databases have led to fatal errors in identification, as seen recently in Biddeford’s tragedy next door in Maine;
the FBI has declined to investigate deaths that occur as a result of ICE actions; and
contracts for detention centers claim that state laws “shall not apply.”
I can’t speak to the deepest-held convictions my neighbors have for signing the petition. For my part, I oppose the ICE agreement and the funding from a federal agency that has been transformed from its intended focus on immigration law enforcement to become a paramilitary outfit that is undertrained, over-resourced, seemingly unaccountable, and engaged in terrorizing the interior on the orders of Stephen Miller and Donald Trump. Our local police force is at its best when it remains focused on serving and protecting Chester, rather than taking on federal mandates that have little to do with life here at the crossroads of 102 and 121.
