{"id":2396,"date":"2025-10-15T20:05:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T20:05:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/2396\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T20:05:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T20:05:20","slug":"public-outcry-in-allentown-residents-allege-ice-trapping-immigrants-at-courthouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/2396\/","title":{"rendered":"Public outcry in Allentown: Residents allege ICE \u2018trapping\u2019 immigrants at courthouse"},"content":{"rendered":"

UPDATE: Allentown mayor calls on judge to ban ICE from county courthouses<\/a><\/p>\n

ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 Residents on Wednesday night implored the Lehigh County commissioners to do something to stop U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, from detaining people in or near the courthouse without cause or without possession of judicial warrants.<\/p>\n

Many of the residents placed the blame at the feet of county commissioners.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re letting government-employed Nazis take away our community members. You\u2019re choosing to do nothing and you are complicit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gwyn, a Lynn Township resident<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really disgusted what you\u2019re allowing to happen in the courthouse,\u201d said a woman who identified herself as Gwyn, a Lynn Township resident.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy are ICE agents in the courthouse leading people into a literal trap? These people are doing the right things [by going through proper channels], but ICE agents take them and they disappear.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re letting government-employed Nazis take away our community members. You\u2019re choosing to do nothing and you are complicit.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group produced no evidence that ICE agents were violating the law; LehighValleyNews.com reached out to an ICE spokesperson Thursday morning for comment.<\/p>\n

Commissioners’ Board Chairman Geoff Brace said he will contact county Sheriff Joe Hanna and President Judge J. Brian Johnson regarding the protocol ICE agents are required to follow.<\/p>\n

‘ICE just detains anyone regardless’<\/p>\n

What prompted citizens to attend the meeting en masse was an incident outside the courthouse Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n

According to Josie Lopez, an organizer\/activist in the Allentown community for the Emergency Response Network, her group was notified ICE agents were in the courthouse.<\/p>\n

The group alerted a man inside the courthouse who ICE agents may have been targeting, she said, and he left the building.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we dispatched to the courthouse and gathered outside,\u201d Lopez said. \u201cWhen the agents came outside, we asked if they were federal agents because they were in plainclothes and we felt they were going to detain someone.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a video of them taking running steps toward an individual who was already outside. But we were being loud and alerting people about what ICE was doing. <\/p>\n

“Then they just stopped and gave up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ice.jpg\"<\/p>\n

Phil Gianficaro<\/p>\n

\/<\/p>\n

LehighValleyNews.com<\/p>\n

Allentown resident Frederick Montgomery addresses Lehigh County Commissioners about ICE agents inside the courthouse.<\/p>\n

Lopez, who also spoke during the public comment part of the commissioners\u2019 meeting, said she doesn\u2019t know if the man in question on Tuesday was undocumented.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just that there have been so many other cases where ICE just detains anyone regardless,\u201d she said, and said there were similar ICE raids in Allentown in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

After the meeting, none of the commissioners asked said they knew what the latest incident was that prompted residents to attend the meeting to complain.<\/p>\n

Allentown codified pro-immigrant policies in February<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The bill says city resources won’t be used to enforce federal immigration laws and limits collaboration between local police, city employees, and ICE and other immigration officials unless a federal court order is issued.<\/p>\n

That policy aligns Allentown with the “Welcoming City” initiative, which aims to create more inclusive communities for immigrants.<\/p>\n

Impact on immigrant community<\/p>\n

The policy is intended to help the city’s significant immigrant population feel safer reporting crimes without fear of their immigration status being questioned or risking deportation.<\/p>\n

It also aims to prevent individuals without legal status from being targeted for deportation simply for being in the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve gotten challenging comments that don\u2019t jibe with our policies and don\u2019t follow the Fourth Amendment [which protects individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures]. That requires some attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Geoff Brace, chairman of Lehigh County Board of Commissioners<\/p>\n

\u201cThe comments tonight lead me to believe that we need to doublecheck how things are being applied across county government,\u201d Brace said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve gotten challenging comments that don\u2019t jibe with our policies and don\u2019t follow the Fourth Amendment [which protects individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures]. That requires some attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Commissioner Jon Irons was at the courthouse on Tuesday and said he saw ICE agents there.<\/p>\n

\u201cICE and the Department of Homeland Security are acting outside not only the law but norms of immigration policy,\u201d Irons said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very clear this is all directed by the Trump Administration. It\u2019s an attempt to create fear. We\u2019re fighting a federal government that is acting outside laws.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom what I hear, people are disappearing from the courthouse \u2014 and not through the front doors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rapid Response<\/p>\n

In June, hundreds in Bethlehem took to the streets to protest<\/a> an ICE worksite enforcement operation where 17 people were arrested.<\/p>\n

The people, who authorities said were detained for alleged immigration violations<\/a>, were part of a restoration contractor company working on site of the nearby, fire-damaged Five10 Flats apartment building on Third Street.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the ethnic cleansing of our population.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harry Faber, a member of the Rapid Response Network<\/p>\n

Residents were prompted to attend the commissioners\u2019 meeting via a social media post by Rapid Response Network, which encourages reporting of suspicious activity potentially related to immigration enforcement, such as ICE sightings.<\/p>\n

In that posting and under the heading \u201cCall to Action,\u201d the group urged citizens to speak to the commissioners during the public comment portion of the meeting.<\/p>\n

Harry Faber, a member of the Rapid Response Network, categorized the procedures alleged of the group by ICE agents as imperialism.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the ethnic cleansing of our population,\u201d Faber said.<\/p>\n

Said Amber Clark, an Allentown resident who served in the Marine Corps: \u201cLet\u2019s send the message that Lehigh County is not complicit in unconstitutional actions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have not just a legal opportunity, but a moral one. I urge you \u2014 do not let them hang out in the courthouse.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UPDATE: Allentown mayor calls on judge to ban ICE from county courthouses ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 Residents on Wednesday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,2146,2147,2148,2149,2150,2151,2152,743],"class_list":["post-2396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-ice-in-allentown","tag-ice-in-lehigh-county-courthouse","tag-ice-in-lehigh-valley","tag-lehigh-county-board-of-commissioners","tag-lehigh-county-courthouse","tag-lehigh-county-sheriff-joe-hanna","tag-rapid-response-network","tag-u-s-immigration-and-customs-enforcement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}