City officials make clear ICE is not welcome in Medford

The Medford City Council passed a resolution denouncing the killing of Renee Nicole Goode, 37-year-old Minneapolis mother who was killed by an ICE agent who opened fire as she attempted to drive away.

“I so deeply hope that these things do not come here to this place … but one of the biggest and most dangerous things is the idea that it cannot happen here,” said City Council President Zac Bears.

Councilors as well as a number of residents spoke on the resolution. Among the concerns was a seeming lack of urgency regarding the still-volatile situation in Minneapolis from Mayor Breanna Lungo-Koehn. Councilor George Scarpelli said he felt the community was looking for its mayor to stand up and say “this is what we need to do …” and to make a plan for residents who feel unsafe.

And then she did, take a stand anyway.

Saturday evening Lungo-Koehn and Cambridge City Manager Yi-An Huang, who are co-chairs of the Metro Mayors Coalition, issued a joint statement following the killing of a 37-year-old man, Alex Pretti, by federal agents in Minneapolis. In it, they decried ICE occupations in Minneapolis and in Portland, Maine. 

“This is not a targeted immigration enforcement action, but instead resembles a militarized invasion of masked and armed federal agents intended to create fear and intimidation,” reads the statement.

It goes on to say that ICE is radically profiling communities, detaining legal residents and U.S. citizens, and using excessive force against civilians. 

“Two U.S. citizens have been killed and many more have been injured," the statement reads. "Parents are keeping their children home from school, worshippers are staying home from their religious community, and families are missing doctor’s appointments and work for fear of being forcibly taken. Community trust is breaking, and public safety is being jeopardized. These unconstitutional and unnecessary actions increase tensions and make us less safe.”

Lungo-Koehn and Huang ended the statement with, "An occupying force does not belong in our communities or anywhere in the United States of America. We demand an immediate end to ICE actions and call for full respect for the Constitution, civil liberties, and public safety."

The City Council resolution

For Councilor Justin Tseng, the resolution he voted for is about turning grief into results and making it clear that Medford will lead with courage and care. Tseng has said a number of times that he is proud to be the child of immigrants and to call Medford his home. He said the city has always been a place where people of different nationalities, languages, and journeys kept hope that Medford was a safe place to build a life. But that has changed in Medford and across the country, he said.

“I carry my passport card with me, because in moments like these, we're reminded that when power is exercised without restraint, without accountability, and simply looking different can be treated as grounds for suspicion,” he said. “But we don't have to accept a world where violence is normalized and accountability optional.” 

Anna Callahan, who along with Emily Lazzaro brought the resolution forward, told her own harrowing tale of being arrested and detained for three days in 2000 in Los Angeles where she had attended a shadow convention of the Democratic National Convention. At the time it was the largest mass arrest at a DNC, where 70 bicycle riders were taken into custody and held for at least 36 hours during a pro-cycling demonstration. The charges for all were later dropped, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Callahan told what it was like to be strip-searched, shackled, and humiliated and how she couldn’t believe what was happening. She said she understands how immigrants today are afraid that they might be arrested, or worse, shot.

“I do hope that the administration will take this seriously,” she said. “I think it is important that we can protect our residents.”

She said she would be working, with Tseng, on putting in writing what law enforcement agencies are allowed and not allowed to do within Medford city limits. She also invited people to reach out if they needed help or had ideas on how the council could help. 

Bears agreed that the new conversation needed to focus on what the council could do within the bounds of the law and also what it should do when the law doesn’t hold.

Councilor Matt Leming said it's all about connections. He urged residents to reach out to each other and make sure neighbors are aware of the resources available to them, like lawyers and hotline numbers.

“Yes it’s important for the city to act … it’s also important to make sure that folks who are the most vulnerable are connected,” he said. “That often requires breaking out of our own circles, talking to people we're not used to talking to, and making sure that we really have a very widely connected community.”

Residents weigh in on what people can do

Clare Sheridan said her Haitian neighbors have disappeared, and as a self-described old white lady, she said she should have nothing to fear, and yet she is afraid.

Steve Schnapp suggests Medford follow Somerville’s lead and print doorknob hangers that contain basic “Know Your Rights” information along with important phone numbers and this sentence; “call 911 if ICE comes to your door, [Medford] police will verify if they have a real warrant.” 

In that vein, another resident asked that Medford police take the 9-1-1 calls from residents dealing with ICE seriously and send an officer to at least witness what is happening and show support for the resident.

Micah Kesselman suggested the city pass ordinances aimed at prison safety, face mask bans, and restricting ICE or determining a presumption of unlawfulness for ICE … “based on their clearly unconstitutional pattern of behavior here and across the country.”

Ultimately, residents can all patrol and protect the city’s neighborhoods, Kesselman said, urging people to grab a whistle from him to alert neighbors if need be. 

“I will be handing them out in the battle,” he said. 

He also suggested that equal force might enter the equation and if anyone wanted to know how to acquire a firearm license, they could reach out to him. 

Meghan Searl praised the councilors saying their resolution reaffirms residents' constitutional rights to protest peacefully and to observe and document the activity of federal agents. Searl said that while that might not seem critical now, it’s important because she believes the country has a short window in which to turn around the trek toward authoritarianism. What the council has done, she said, is empower citizens to do what they need to do to slow down and, hopefully, stop the trek.

“It's become evident that we the people are the ones who have to turn this country around, and it's crucial that these rights are protected,” Searl said. “While it's unusual for the activity of the Medford City Council to have implications for the future of this country, and I would even say the future of the world, this is the case now, and the hope for the future of the American democratic experiment rests on communities like Medford and the actions of their leaders, because the country is made up of hundreds and thousands of Medfords. It is up to us, community by community, to ensure the survival of our democracy.”