BREAKING: Third grader & family abducted by ICE will return home

Sackets Harbor, NY has shown us what can happen when US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) pushes its luck in a small town—even when Trump’s Border Czar Tom Homan is a resident.

Over the weekend I reported on a protest of 1,000 people in the tiny town to demand ICE return a local mother and three children who were wrongfully abducted when the federal agency was executing a search warrant for someone else in late March. The Handbasket has now learned, per a press release from the school district, that all four family members are in the process of being released and will get to go home. 

“My colleagues and I are relieved and grateful to share that, after eleven days of uncertainty, our students and their mother are returning home,” Jennifer L. Gaffney, Superintendent of Sackets Harbor CSD, wrote in a statement. “We remain committed to providing the care, understanding, and sensitivity necessary for all students and staff as we begin the healing process from this traumatic experience.”

In a time so devoid of good news, this is surely a welcome ray of hope.

“The authorities have confirmed the release of the family following a health review, follow-up with ICE witness coordinator and investigative interview with the case agent in charge of the investigation,” Republican Assemblyman Scott Gray said in a statement to WWNY. “ICE has made an independent decision to release the family while the criminal investigation continues to be conducted.” 

It is not clear exactly when the family will arrive home. The school is declining to provide any further comment on how they helped secure the family’s release, stating they’re now focused on caring for their 3rd, 10th and 11th graders who were handcuffed and taken from their home on March 27th, as well as students and staff traumatized by the series of events.

“I think the most important thing is that the focus stays on them because. That's our ask,” Jaime Cook, principal of the town’s pre K-12 school, told me Saturday evening. “I don't think that our ask is political. I think that our ask is just what any teacher or principal or any school would want for their children. They've got very important things to do here. It's a very crucial time of the year. We would like them back, please.”

Cook’s wish was granted, along with the rest of a community that banded together to make sure their classmates and neighbors could not and would not be forgotten. On Saturday locals gathered to march through town—and specifically by Honan’s house—to raise hell about the heinous injustice. Honan called it bullying; but protesters got the final word.

The people of Sackets Harbor—and especially the school administrators and teachers—should serve as an example for us all that resistance can work. You do not need to comply in advance. The Trump administration is powerful, but not invincible.

This story is a reminder to journalists that reporting on things happening in the smallest places can have the largest impact. My hats off to the local journalists who first made noise about this miscarriage of justice. I feel fortunate that I could help amplify it, and that we can celebrate this small but powerful victory.

And we can rest a little easier knowing the third grader will finally get to see the welcome home banner hung by classmates with love.