Hundreds protest ICE detention center in Industrial Park

About 400 people gathered at Chester Commons Field and inside the senior center on Laroe Road on Jan. 12 at the regularly scheduled Village of Chester Board meeting. The meeting was moved to the senior center in anticipation of a larger-than-usual board meeting crowd.

The majority of people were there to voice their opposition to a proposed Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) detention center at the former Pep Boys warehouse in the Chester Industrial Park within the village. The topic was not up for discussion but those they do not want local authorities to help the federal government set up their proposed detention center wished to make their voice heard.

Mayor Tom Bell said the village had not been contacted by the federal government about the project, but the site was the subject of a “notice of activity” published by the Department of Homeland Security. The Washington Post reported that the federal government wants to create a network of 23 new detention centers in warehouses that can house up to 80,000 undocumented immigrants at a time.

While the meeting was filled to capacity with protestors – so much so that the Chronicle could not access the meeting – hundreds more rallied outside on the Chester Commons football field.

A raucous crowd often chanted obscenities, such as a cheer of “Ole Ole Ole, F––– Trump, F––– Trump.”

Richie Hoffman of Beekman in Dutchess County said he’d been to three protests in the past week and goes to as many as possible. A a self-described “peaceful anarchist,” he said he believes that people should have the right to migrate freely across any border.

“I am against governments,” he said. “I don’t believe we need them to be moral people.”

Logan Stapleton of Poughkeepsie is a member of the Mid Hudson Valley Democratic Socialists of America, the organization that alerted him to the rally in Chester. He said his family is from Minneapolis and he doesn’t want what is happening there to happen in his community.

“My major concern is ICE. I think they’re acting violently. They are arresting people indiscriminately,” he said.

Mark Horberg of Warwick said he believed the government’s approach to immigration should be more balanced and compassionate.

“They don’t operate in a transparent way. It’s anti-American.” he said. “We do need a form of control at the border. We need a balanced approach that doesn’t wreak havoc on society.”

Many Democratic lawmakers in the region have rallied against the ICE facility. Chester Supervisor Brandon Holdridge said the plans of the Trump Administration are un-American and lamented that this era in history will be looked back on in shame.

Congressman Pat Ryan was among the first to ring the alarm bells about the project. He recently launched a petition against the detention center on his website.

“Our Hudson Valley community strongly rejects the Trump Administration’s plans for mass detention camps across the country, especially in our own backyard,” he said in a press release. “It’s shameful, un-American, and the exact opposite of everything our community stands for.”

Holdridge said that he wants to hold another rally against the detention center on Saturday, Jan. 17 but no plan is official as yet.

It is not clear whether local government can stop the detention center from being installed, especially as zoning laws do not typically apply to the federal government.

One local official questioned how the federal government would install the new sewer capacity necessary to operate such a large-scale facility.