By Scott Brinton
The re-election of Hempstead Mayor Waylyn Hobbs Jr. over challenger Kevin Boone leaves open a question of whether the village will cooperate with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers as they seek to carry out President Trump’s executive orders calling for mass detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants.
Two phone calls to Hobbs’s office seeking comment on the question of potential ICE collaboration, one before the election and one after, were not returned.
Boone, who lost his trustee seat in running for the mayoralty, had pledged during a meeting with Hempstead-area immigrant activists in the week leading to the March 18 election that he would, if elected, sign an ordinance prohibiting village cooperation with ICE.
Boone’s statement came in response to a question by Nadia Marin-Molina, co-executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. She asked whether Boone would allow the Hempstead Village Police Department to cooperate with ICE in detaining undocumented immigrants. She noted the village had no written policy prohibiting such collaboration.
Under current policy, Marin-Molina said, “any individual police officer can call immigration.”
Boone ran on the People Over Party United ticket with incumbent Trustee Clariona Griffith and newcomer Kevin Ramirez. They also were present at the meeting with the activists, held at a bar/restaurant in downtown Hempstead. The Long Island Advocate sat in on the session.
“Everybody should be treated fairly,” Boone said. “We don’t feel anyone should be targeted, especially by the police. The police are there to serve and protect in ways that are not harassing.”
Three votes would be needed on the five-member Hempstead Village Board to pass an ordinance prohibiting ICE cooperation. Election of Boone’s three-member ticket would have ensured that the measure would have received a hearing at village hall and likely would have passed, as Griffith and Ramirez had also pledged to vote for such an ordinance.
Like Boone, Griffith and Ramirez were defeated in Tuesday’s election, losing to challengers Tanya Carter and William Whitaker.
Griffith told the activists that the People Over Party United Ticket sought to represent the many and diverse interests of Hempstead residents, including those of the immigrant community. “This is a diverse ticket,” said Griffith, herself an immigrant from Guyana, in South America. “This is a ticket that can reflect every single person. It’s people over party … That’s why we’re here tonight, to share our stories on what we need to do to help everyone who is not documented.”
Griffith said many see immigration as an issue only affecting Hempstead’s Hispanic population. She noted, though, that the village’s immigrant community comprises people from many parts of the world, including people from Guyana. There, the population primarily comprises people of East Indian, African, Amerindian (Indigenous), Chinese and Portuguese descent.
“When ICE comes in … it’s all of us that are affected,” Griffith said.
“Everybody should be treated fairly. We don’t feel anyone should be targeted, especially by the police. The police are there to serve and protect in ways that are not harassing.”
Kevin Boone, Village of Hempstead Mayoral Candidate
The issue of whether the village will cooperate with ICE was not raised during the election until the People Over Party United ticket’s meeting with the immigrant activists, Boone said.
According to the activists, however, the question of possible village cooperation with ICE has swirled since Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican from Atlantic Beach, announced an agreement in February with the Trump administration allowing 10 county police detectives to collaborate with ICE in detaining undocumented immigrants. Blakeman said the detectives would only cooperate in arresting known criminal suspects.
The immigrant community, though, is concerned about the possibility for broader cooperation with ICE that could include home and workplace raids of undocumented immigrants not suspected of crimes, according to Marin-Molina.
During a recent protest outside the Nassau County Executive and Legislative Building in Mineola, Susan Gottehrer, the New York Civil Liberties Union regional director for Nassau, noted immigration is not a criminal matter. “We have two systems of law in this country,” she told the crowd. “One is civil and one is criminal. Immigration is considered civil law, not criminal law.”
For this reason, many immigrant activists contend police should not, as a general rule, be asked to cooperate with ICE in detaining undocumented immigrants.
Nassau police can enter homes and businesses under Hempstead Village Police Department jurisdiction to make arrests, Boone said, but only with a judicial warrant. Also, village police must be notified, he said, “as a courtesy.”
“Even the best legislation or ordinances, all they can do is tell the village, OK, we’re not going to help [ICE] … You can’t stop them,” Marin-Molina said.
The Trump administration has threatened possible punishment for municipalities that act as “sanctuaries” for undocumented immigrants. Sanctuary municipalities are those that do not cooperate with ICE, often because officials worry that undocumented immigrants will fear reporting local crimes and emergencies if they might be turned over to federal officials after doing so.
In a phone interview the day after the election, Boone vowed, “I am not done,” saying he will remain active in village civic life. And he predicted Mayor Hobbs “is not going to give us any information” on potential ICE cooperation.
