Eight people, including a mother and her three children, were taken into custody by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement from an upstate New York farm last week — and now Gov. Kathy Hochul is calling for their release and return to the Empire State.
Federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security apprehended four people from a Sackets Harbor farm last Thursday — and then made a separate arrest of the mother and her children who resided in a home on the property, Spectrum News reported.
The three kids include two high school-aged children and a third-grader, who have all been transported to an ICE detention facility, with their mother, in Karns County, Texas — a move slammed by Hochul.
“There is absolutely no justification for masked ICE agents to rip an innocent family — including a child in the third grade — from their home,” Hochul wrote on X.
“I’ll work with anyone to crack down on violent criminals. But I want this family returned to New York & ICE needs to immediately answer for these actions,” the governor added in a follow-up post.
The arresting ICE officers allegedly entered the woman’s house without a judicial warrant, according to the local outlet.
Local officials gave voice to the community’s concern over the sudden apprehensions.
“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,” Sackets Harbor Central School District Superintendent Jennifer Gaffney said, according to the report.
“Their friends are wondering where they are. Their teachers are distraught,” she added,
Immigration activists called out the Trump administration for the arrests, specifically acting director of ICE and Border Czar Tom Homan, whose hometown is Sackets Harbor.
“It is horrifying that these children and their mother were snatched from their home and disappeared. This egregious action in Tom Homan’s backyard is an affront to American values, and to humanity in general,” Murad Awawdeh, President and CEO of New York Immigration, said in a statement.
“Everyone in America has the right to due process, but Donald Trump, Tom Homan, and ICE are now acting fully outside of the law. We demand their immediate release,” the statement concluded.
Homan is planning on coming to New York to meet with the Rochester cops who were scolded by pols for assisting ICE agents in the apprehension of eight suspected illegal migrants last week.
Those local officers were called to the scene by federal agents who asked for emergency police assistance in taking those individuals into custody during a traffic stop.
“I stand with the officers of the Rochester, New York Police Department that answered the emergency assistance call from the U.S. Border Patrol,” Homan posted on X after meeting with reps from a Rochester police union.
“Sanctuary policies endanger our police and the public. President Trump and AG Pam Bondi are committed,” Homan stated in the post.