BETHLEHEM, Pa. – Two rallies were held in Bethlehem Thursday night in response to the 17 workers taken into ICE custody Wednesday for alleged immigration violations.
Hundreds marched from the Five10 Flats to City Hall to make their voices heard.
“We don’t believe that people doing their job and trying to provide for their families should be detained and brought to prisons,” said Jon Irons, Lehigh County Commissioner.
In addition to serving as a county commissioner, Irons is also an immigrant from Ecuador. He helped organize Thursday’s rallies through the Lehigh Valley Immigration Rapid Response Network.
“I am one of only a handful of elected officials at the local level here in the Lehigh Valley who are immigrants, so I think it’s a responsibility to both use my platform and my credibility as an elected official to stand in front of the immigrant community,” Irons told 69 News.
People of all ages came out to peacefully protest ICE outside Five10 Flats, and then again at City Hall, carrying signs with slogans such as “return our stolen neighbors”, “destroy all borders” and “our friends, our neighbors, our town”.
Regarding the arrests, ICE told us:
“On June 11, ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations Allentown and Enforcement and Removal Operations Philadelphia, along with federal law enforcement partners, conducted an HSI-led worksite enforcement operation at The Five10 Flats apartment building, located at 510 E 3rd St., Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.”
“Seventeen employees of a construction contracting company were encountered, interviewed and arrested for immigration violations and subsequently detained pending removal proceedings. As this is an ongoing investigation, no further information is available at this time.”