A mother and her three children are on their way back home to New York following their detention last month by immigration enforcement officials at a dairy farm, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced on Monday.
The third grader, two teenagers, and their mother, whose identities have not been publicly disclosed, were taken into custody on March 27th. This occurred as officials executed a search warrant at the farm for an individual accused of possessing “child sexual abuse materials,” Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, stated on X on Monday.
During the operation at Old McDonald’s Farm in Sackets Harbor, officials “encountered seven additional undocumented immigrants on the premises,” including the mother and her children,” McLaughlin reported.
According to the New York Immigration Coalition, the mother and her children were transported to the Karnes County Detention Facility in Texas, a distance of nearly 1,800 miles.
Their detention comes as the Trump administration continues its efforts to tighten the country’s immigration policies and practices.
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Details regarding the reason for the family’s detention under the warrant were not released until Monday.
Government and school officials voiced their disapproval of the action, while community members marched through the streets of Sackets Harbor, a village in Jefferson County on Lake Ontario, over the weekend. Their destination was the home of White House border czar Tom Homan, where they called for the family’s release, CNN affiliate WWNY reported.
“Our 3 students who were taken by ICE were doing everything right,” Jaime Cook, the principal of Sackets Harbor Central School District, said in a statement on Facebook. “They had declared themselves to immigration judges, attended court on their assigned dates, and were following the legal process. They are not criminals.”
“Our students were put in handcuffs,” Cook told CNN. When asked about reports that the children were handcuffed, McLaughlin stated, “Any claims that a third-grade child was handcuffed are not true. DHS takes its responsibility to protect children seriously.”
Cook learned about the incident from a teacher who tutors one of the teenagers. When the teacher arrived at the family’s residence to pick up the student, they observed a significant ICE presence.
The operation was not a raid, Homan told WWNY last week, nearly a month after he told CNN’s Dana Bash that “we have got to do more” to increase the number of immigration arrests.
CNN reached out to Homan for comment on Tuesday.
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“During investigations like that, we have to ensure that any children within that area are safe,” Homan said last week. “There’s a process during these investigations where could these children – could that family be a material witness in this horrendous crime? Can they provide information and evidence in this crime? Were they victimized within this crime?”
After 10 days of uncertainty, Jennifer L. Gaffney, the superintendent of Sackets Harbor Central School District, expressed her joy that the family is returning home and her hope that they can collectively work towards healing from the “traumatic experience” in an online statement.
“What happened to our students was traumatic and unjust,” Cook stated on Tuesday.
“New York has been consistent: we are open to working with federal immigration enforcement to crack down on gang members or violent criminals,” Hochul said following the news of the family’s release. “But I will never support cruel actions that rip kids out of school or tear families apart.”
As the family enters “the next phase of navigating their journey through the immigration system,” they are requesting privacy, according to the New York Immigration Coalition.
