Members of Williamsport’s faith-based community say they are assisting individuals – most of them Spanish speaking – who are fearful they will be taken away by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

In recent weeks, ICE enforcement has taken place at job sites, working on roofs at a business in Montoursville and a house in South Williamsport.

Recently, City Council heard vivid accounts of immigrants living in the city who are speaking to and through church members and pastors about how they are filled with anxiety if they walk outside of their residences and are equally thankful to be receiving food assistance, drives to schools and doctors offices and, in general, compassion shown for their situations.

In one case, a pastor told the council that ICE was watching the immigrant family, tracking their moves.

However, according to ICE public affairs information on enforcement and deportation, the agency responds and detains individuals who are suspected of violating immigration laws, including those without legal status, people with past criminal convictions, or those with pending criminal charges and of a national security risk.

ICE only uses detention to secure individuals for immigration proceedings or removal, with some individuals placed on alternatives to detention programs. Those detained include immigration fugitives, re-entrants, and those apprehended at the border, according to the agency’s public affairs office.

Voices to the voiceless

“As part of my religious duties, I am giving voice to the voiceless,” said the Rev. Kyle Murphy of Christ Episcopal Church, 426 Mulberry St., whose message to council during a public comment period was one that came with a written statement from an immigrant who is scared for herself and her children.

She arrived in the U.S. under lawful status, has no criminal record, and is presently in immigration processes for permanent status, Murphy said.

Sadly, those who know her have seen her change from someone who brings warmth and joy when she enters a room into someone who is “filled with anxiety.”

The woman has “stopped working and has kept her children inside,” Murphy said.

Real fear

“She and her children could be detained if they are even to go play in the park,” Murphy said.

“They no longer can go to the library for story time, to the park to play or out for ice cream,” he said.

The woman also wrote a brief letter read aloud by Murphy describing her story:

It follows: “To have to leave your country of birth due to political problems is very difficult. It is painful to leave your culture, family and customs behind to become part of a society that is very different from your own, from the language, to all other customs,” she stated.

“It is also painful to see how government decisions affect so many like me who want to be in America. We all walk around with the fear of being detained by individuals who are supposedly ICE agents. I say supposedly because they are people who do not carry any identification and in many cases they walk around hooded like criminals,” the woman wrote.

In the cases involving publicly discussed raids in Lycoming County, the agents were clearly identified as ICE on their clothing.

Nevertheless, the immigrant continued:

“We are fleeing from dictators and we are being persecuted by dictatorial laws,” she stated.

Indeed, much of the conversations circle around it is a jurisdictional issue, according to Murphy.

However, he said, “these are people who reside in your community.”

“There is real fear and real anxiety,” Murphy attested.

“As someone who helps many people in the community for many different reasons, resources are already “strapped,” he said.

Another city resident and pastor’s wife approached council with her concerns – as a person of faith.

She stated she and her husband have been in the community for 17 years, are very involved and love Williamsport. She described how her husband, as a pastor, is called upon to do a variety of tasks – some blessed such as baptisms and weddings – and others less joyous but equally important such as visitations to hospitals, but there are things done on behalf of the pastoral service – that he can’t tell anyone about due to confidentiality.

Over the past six months, she noted, they have been inundated by individuals in dire need, many of them who are immigrants and Spanish speaking. As someone who speaks fluent Spanish she said she was aware of many of their worries.

“Are you aware that we are literally in a dire humanitarian crisis in this community among Spanish speaking immigrants?” she asked the council.

She admitted there were probably others but these are the ones that she was aware of who were in need of assistance.

“I assisted a young woman who was pregnant and should have been at the doctor and was having issues. But she was afraid to go. And I took her. People are afraid to go to the doctor. They are under abject fear. There are people sitting at homes who do not have food because they are afraid to leave and to get food. I am grocery shopping for them,” she said.

“Why are they afraid because ICE has watched their homes,” the pastor’s wife said. “Like sat back around the block, kept track of their comings and goings and have taken people who were trying to get jobs,” she said.

“Why are they doing that because people know they can’t come into their homes without a judicial warrant,” she said. “They are not being paid attention to whether there is a warrant or not.”

The pastor’s wife said the issue is real and she and the faith-based community members are doing what they can.

“I helped a woman with small children because her gas was turned off,” she said. “I helped a young woman by giving her rides to work, an educated woman who came here under a program … who waited in Mexico for one year, got a job with a school district and had to turn it down,” she said.

“I am trying to let you know that there are people here who have food shortages, can’t pay for their kid’s school supplies and children are terrified to go to school,” she said.

“My question is ‘Are you aware? Do you care? And as a community what are we doing for these people?”

City resident Logan Jones has asked if the city or Bureau of Police get a call from ICE about an impending raid, and if a request was made by ICE to have police assist in planning or executing it, does the city or police department comply? Council President Adam Yoder directed Jones to approach the police or mayor with such a question. Jones said it is a simple yes or no and if he does not get an answer he will return and ask it again.

Meanwhile, the Rev. Kathy Jordan said she moved to Williamsport with her family just under two years ago. “We went into one of the grocery stores and saw a variety of people, real diversity,” she said.

“We saw different churches that were here of different faiths, and all of this made us feel so great about relocating to Williamsport,” she said.

Since then, Jordan said she has helped people get groceries because they do not want to go out of their homes.

She said she has helped mothers with children get their children to school because they were terrified to go to a new school without accompaniment.

“I don’t want to feel that I have moved to a town that disregards and doesn’t care about human beings,” Jordan said.

“And I am asking you to really let the public know how the city council, the mayor, the police how we feel about what is happening in our city and, of course, in this country, to individuals who came here, some that are citizens, some that are legal and some that might not be legal but do not have any criminal record whatsoever. I would like to find out how this city stands on this.”