For many years, Michael Slider said he hasn’t thought much about the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
“But now they've turned into some modern-day Gestapo, and I don't want to have anything to do with them, and I don't want my community to have anything to do with them,” he said.
Slider lives in Oldham County and leads a local group called Kentucky Citizens for Democracy. The group hosted a town hall at a community center Thursday evening to discuss the ongoing federal crackdown on immigrants and Oldham County’s involvement.
Slider indicated their group’s public push against Oldham County agencies partnering with ICE began after he read a Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting article last month about counties seeking to join ICE’s controversial 287(g) program, which delegates certain immigration enforcement authority to state and local law enforcement.
In early March, ICE data listed, apparently inaccurately, that the Oldham County Sheriff sought 287(g) arrangements with ICE. Subsequent data indicates it was actually the Oldham County Detention Center, which operates independently of the sheriff, that secured two 287(g) contracts. Jim Acquisto, the Oldham County Sheriff’s chief deputy, told KyCIR this week the agency has not applied for an agreement with ICE.
Oldham County Jailer Jeff Tindall, the elected official in charge of the detention center, came to Thursday’s town hall and listened to what residents had to say.
More than a dozen people spoke at the event and most made it clear they don’t want their county jail, or any local agency, working with ICE. Many said they’re worried for family, friends and neighbors as Trump incarcerates and deports people in ways that, ongoing lawsuits argue, are illegal and violate their constitutional rights.
A few teachers talked about seeing acute fear among Hispanic students and their families. One educator said she accompanied a parent who packed a suitcase to go to a non-criminal court hearing, afraid ICE would arrest her.
A woman who is married to a Mexican man spoke about her fears of racial profiling and of how people stare her family down at Kroger lately because of the color of their skin.
Alex LeBlanc said the Trump administration’s actions have made his mother — who moved to America from Germany decades ago but is not a U.S. citizen — afraid to post on social media or talk to coworkers who disagree with her about politics.
He said she’s raised a family and built a life here.
“Yet today, the granddaughter of a man who helped Jews escape from Nazi Germany — at great risk to himself and his family — is afraid that if she speaks out on what her heart tells her is wrong, she will be taken away, and the government will take everything she owns. Right here, in the home of the free. The home she chose,” LeBlanc said.
A couple people at Thursday’s town hall expressed support for local partnerships with ICE’s 287(g) program. The first person who did got vocal pushback from others who told her she’d just said something inaccurate, but event organizers intervened and then people listened quietly and applauded her, just like they did for all the other speakers.
As the event wound down, someone asked if Tindall, Oldham County’s jailer, would talk to the crowd. He did, though he admitted, to friendly laughter, he hadn’t expected to speak.
Tindall said his responsibility is to make sure people incarcerated at the jail are “being treated fair, firm and consistent,” and he’s committed to that.
