The Latino residents of the North Fork are afraid —that much was clear last night at the Synergy Greenport meeting hosted by the Southold Anti-Bias Task Force. But Latinos who attended the meeting learned that police, government officials and community members hear them and want to help.
Nearly 100 people packed the Synergy Greenport meeting at St. Agnes School last night, where the discussion centered on the community’s fears of deportation and what role local law enforcement will take now that municipalities face threats to federal funding if they don’t cooperate with federal immigration enforcement authorities.
Greenport resident Oscar Cruz spoke emotionally about the toll that fear is taking on members of the Latino community and advocated for them.
“There’s a lot of good people,” Cruz said. “We try to be good neighbors. We try to switch our cultures. We love America, we love this culture and we try to get involved. I don’t want to be separated from my children.”
He wanted to know if the Latino community’s fear of another ICE raid is real. “Do we have to be afraid for them to come?” he asked.
“We’re not here to act as immigration officials,” Southold Town Police Chief Martin Flatley assured Cruz.
“Our department is here to protect and to serve our community,” Southold Police Chief Martin Flatley said. “I have no plans on dedicating officers to do any kind of immigration work.”
The memory of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid in Greenport a decade ago is still fresh, noted Poppy Johnson of Greenport. In 2007, ICE agents, with help from the town police force, raided homes in Greenport where 11 men with suspected gang associations were “dragged out of their houses in the middle of the night,” she said.
Flatley said when those raids took place, it was at a point in time when things were different.
“The only program our department actively participates in is the Protective Enforcement Program program. When we arrest someone and after they are convicted, the fingerprints are automatically forwarded to ICE.”
Johnson asked if Greenport could be designated a sanctuary place.
That would require a cooperative effort between the town and the village, Flatley said.
Southold Town Councilman Bill Ruland said that he was certain the ABTF would make recommendations to the town board regarding the sanctuary issue and that the board “would be in a position to consider it.”
Councilman Jim Dinizio said the town board deals mostly with zoning and things like road paving. that as a Southold Town board member, his job centered mostly on “zoning, how you live, affordable housing.”
“I’ve never had a discussion about sanctuary city,” said Dinizio. “It’s not for a town to consider, in my opinion. So yes, I’m going to listen to the anti-bias task force. They’re going to give us some good suggestions because they’re listening to what I’ve heard tonight. Most of my business with the town is dealing with we’re going to pave this road, pave that road,” he said. We don’t deal with that.”
“Well maybe it has to be,” a woman in the audience interjected.
Dinizio encouraged the ABTF to explain it to him. “At this point in time we have never addressed that and I don’t know at this point how we possibly could because I’m not educated in that at all.”
Several local business owners voiced concern for their employees, pointing out that our economy relies on the immigrant work force and would, in the words of businesswoman Anne Trimble, “tank without our immigrant population.”
“I want to ensure my staff when they come back in the spring that they are going to feel safe in the community,” said Trimble. “How can we assure our immigrant population that they will feel safe?”
Flatley reassured Trimble that his department has been taking a proactive approach, pointing out that they had reached out to several students who, in the days following the election, were harassed at Mattituck School.
“Just because the new president was elected they weren’t going to be thrown out of the country,” said Flatley.
He and Officer Alex Chenche visited with ESL students and spoke to them, reassuring them that the police were there to protect and serve them.
Chenche said that after their meeting the students felt better.
Superintendent David Gamberg, when asked what the schools are doing to assist students in dealing with racial issues, said that his staff is on alert, keeping their eyes and ears open and reminding students that “we expect civility and respect to be the rule of the day.”
Greenport Village Trustee Mary Bess Phillips expressed concern about the increasing gang activity on the North Fork. Flatley said the Southold Police Department has members dedicated to working on the problem of gangs and that they already do go into schools to educate students about gangs.
Anti-Bias Task Force co-chair Sonia Spar pointed out that a big step had already been taken in working together on all of the relevant issues.
“We have members of the Latino community here. They know they feel safe with us. The village is here, they can go to the village. The schools are paying attention. There are people who are going to hear you; who are willing to listen,” Spar said.
Greenport Village Trustee Doug Roberts confronted Flatley about his constituents’ feeling that the village is overlooked by the police, asking point-blank about several recent crimes in the village.
Greenport Village gets a lot more police presence than any other hamlet in the Town of Southold, Flatley said. He proceeded to detail all of the many patrols that are assigned to the village.
As the meeting drew to a close after two hours of dialogue, other concerns were brought to the table, including the small number of Spanish-speaking police officers, a plan to inform the public of their rights and what the community can do to alleviate the fear of our Latino residents.
Ruland addressed what he called “fear and trepidation among the population.”
“This dialogue has to go on. I believe that the very last words of the pledge to our flag are often run off to the end because people are tired of reciting the pledge,” Ruland said, “where it says liberty and justice for all — not some. People who care. That’s the most important thing. People who care.”
“What can the ordinary citizen do?” asked Ruland. “Come and share. We all have to get along.”
SoutholdLOCAL photos by Katharine Schroeder
