A woman and her three children have been released from ICE custody after protests rocked the small New York town where President Donald Trump’s border czar lives.
Officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement had detained the woman and her kids—who are in third, 10th, and 11th grade—on March 27 as part of an unrelated criminal case and sent them to a federal lockup in Texas.
Their arrests “shocked” the tight-knit community of Sackets Harbor, a town of 1,450 people on the eastern shore of Lake Ontario where border czar Tom Homan has a home, the children’s principal wrote in a viral social media post.
Protesters gathered outside Homan’s house, and about 1,000 people marched in a rally Saturday demanding the family be brought home.
Authorities released the mother and her children on Monday without saying what prompted their return. Homan had previously told reporters the family was in the country illegally and that ICE officials had done “everything by the book.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to ICE for comment.
“Sometimes when you serve a warrant in a criminal investigation, there’s other people in the vicinity that have to be detained for questioning and safety reasons. But it’s part of the job,” he told local TV station WWNY.
The officers were searching for a South African man accused of distributing images of sexual abuse who lived on the same street as the family, the AP reported. They arrested him along with seven other people suspected of being in the country illegally.
“The fact that our students were handcuffed and put into the same van as the alleged criminal from down the street is unconscionable,” principal Jaime Cook wrote in her statement. “When I think of my third grader’s experience, my stomach twists and it is hard to breathe.”
She wrote that although the family had entered the country illegally, they had “done everything right,” including declaring themselves to immigration judges, attending their assigned court dates and following the legal process.
“They are loved in their classrooms,” she wrote. “Their family has worked at the nearby ‘Old McDonald’s’ petting zoo and dairy farm for 15 years.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Homan had informed her on Monday that the family was returning to upstate New York, the AP reported.
“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 in a statement. “But I will never support cruel actions that rip kids out of school or tear families apart.”
