‘A Living Nightmare’: Families, Advocates Speak Out on ICE Detentions Outside Lawler’s Office

By Tessa Wheeler

Community members gathered Monday outside Congressman Mike Lawler’s (R-Pearl River) Rockland County office to protest recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainments in NY-17, sharing stories of families torn apart and urging action from the local lawmaker.

Ignacio Acevedo, a senior organizer at the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), stepped up to the podium and played a 27-second audio recording of a mother’s desperate pleas and her four-year-old child’s screeching cries as the mother was taken away by ICE. 

“This is one story of many happening around the Hudson Valley,” Acevedo said. “It’s happening every day.”

“We need the citizens to activate themselves,” Acevedo also implored. “There’s no way immigrants can do it by themselves.” 

He also emphasized the increase in ICE activity in the Hudson Valley. 

“They don’t just take one member [of the community]. The whole block gets taken,” he said. “It’s knocking at your door now.”

Jhefres Reyes, Westchester director of Make the Road Action, introduced each speaker. 

“We remain standing for everyone that belongs to our community,” Reyes said. He challenged Lawler in the wake of the congressman’s recent work to help secure the release of Scarsdale High School graduate Yeonsoo Go from ICE detainment, as well as Spring Valley High School student Alan Junior Pierre.

“If they were willing to partner with DHS to get the release of those folks, why [haven’t they] stood with the people of this district?” Reyes asked of Lawler and his team.

The Examiner sought comment from Lawler’s office by phone and email Monday but has not yet received a response.

Loss in the Community

Daniel Coates from Make the Road Action shared a detailed account of Carlos Andrés Satizabal Moreno’s story, a Colombian immigrant detained on July 1 by ICE immediately after attending his immigration hearing at 26 Federal Plaza in New York City. From there, he was transferred to Nassau County, then back to Federal Plaza, and finally to the Rio Grande Detention Center, where he has since remained. Moreno has several underlying health conditions—he is a cancer survivor and also struggles with anxiety and depression, for which he has an emotional support dog. He is also married to a legal U.S. resident.

On Wednesday, Aug. 20, Moreno has an appointment where he plans to request voluntary departure from the United States. Despite fleeing Colombia due to persecution for his sexual orientation, Moreno believes voluntary departure is the only way he’ll be able to leave the detention center. 

“No one comes out unless it is to leave the country,” Moreno said, as detailed in a written report distributed at the press conference by event organizers.

Sandi Bachom, a journalist, was at 26 Federal Plaza when Moreno was detained and recorded the entire encounter. Bachom has been filming in the hallways of Federal Plaza and documenting detainments all summer. 

“They’re grasping their papers in their hands, and they’re grabbed violently by these ICE agents,” she said. “They just disappear them. They take them down the elevators, down the back stairs, and you don’t know what happens to them. They disappear them.”

She read a statement from Moreno’s family in Florida. 

“What did we do to deserve this?” Moreno’s mother lamented in her writing. “Ah, now we remember. Being an immigrant.” 

Moreno’s mother also shed some light on her son’s headspace, although she feared that his “anxiety and depression might take hold of him, his mind.” Moreno “no longer believes in freedom or justice. He no longer believes in the compassion or mercy of his American brothers.”

Calls to Action

Assemblymember Chris Eachus’s deputy chief of staff, Nelcy Garcia De Leon, was also present to read a statement. 

“Every person deserves a fair hearing, not to be taken from their families without notice or recourse,” the statement read. “I stand with our immigrant neighbors in Rockland and Orange counties, and I call on Congressman Lawler to take a real bipartisan stand and join us in demanding that the Trump administration end these abuses.”

Garcia De Leon added, “Regardless of their immigration status, no family should go about in fear while trying to live their lives.”

Liz Roberts, co-executive director of Proyecto Faro, an organization providing legal services and assistance to immigrants in Rockland County, spoke next. 

“This country functions and thrives because of immigrants,” she said. Roberts also explained that recently ICE agents have waited outside Proyecto Faro’s offices to confront their immigrant clientele. This has greatly affected the efficacy of some of the support programs the organization offers, like those for victims of domestic or sexual violence.

“We are seeing parents making impossible decisions to try to keep their children safe,” Roberts said. “This is a living nightmare for thousands of immigrants, many who are here seeking asylum.” Roberts described Lawler as a “foot soldier,” “more than happy to build [his] political career,” and emphasized to the crowd that “his support for these policies is what landed the [students] in detention in the first place.”

Emily Feiner of the Rockland Working Families Party Club spoke as well, establishing herself as “the proud granddaughter of four immigrants.” She criticized Lawler’s support of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, saying that “Trump, with the help of Mike Lawler, has created the largest law enforcement agency in the world with the Big Ugly Bill.”

“The round-up of immigrants will be followed by an erosion of rights,” Feiner said.

Reyes took the podium once more to encourage those in attendance to call Lawler and urge him to push back on ICE and DHS action. 

“Call, requesting him to tell Donald Trump to stop ICE terrorizing our communities,” Reyes said. 

Tracie Obenauer of Rockland Indivisible spoke last.

 “Due process belongs to everyone on U.S. soil,” she said. “Condemn the ICE raids in our district for what we know they are: unlawful kidnappings.” Lawler, she said, “only shows up when he knows the cameras will.”

“Our neighbors are being taken, and due process is not optional,” Obenauer stressed. “To those who are being taken—we will say your names until you are back home in NY-17.”