{"id":288389,"date":"2026-09-17T20:00:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T20:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/288389\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T20:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T20:00:09","slug":"upper-darby-restricts-collaboration-with-ice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/288389\/","title":{"rendered":"Upper Darby restricts collaboration with ICE"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bernhardt said he has been visiting houses of worship and other community spaces to inform immigrant residents that the police are \u201chere to protect them,\u201d and urging them to call 911 when needed.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you call 911 in this community, the Upper Darby Township Police Department is responding,\u201d he said. \u201cNot immigration, not Homeland Security, not anyone else. We are. And if you need our help, we will help you. We\u2019re not there to answer your immigration status.\u201d
\n\"ACommunity members said Upper Darby\u2019s ordinance restricting collaboration with ICE is an \u201dimportant first step.\u201d (Emily Neil\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n

Upper Darby ICE ordinance \u2018important first step,\u2019 community members say<\/p>\n

Victoria Atowide, 24, said she was \u201cproud of Upper Darby\u201d for passing the ordinance. She\u2019s lived in the township since her family immigrated from Nigeria in 2010.\n<\/p>\n

She and other members of her family are U.S. citizens, but the new legislation is important for them as well as immigrant residents who lack citizenship status, she said.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m glad that at least people will not be scared to just walk around their neighborhood,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n

Desi Burnette, a statewide coordinator with the Movement of Immigrant Leaders in Pennsylvania and a Delaware County resident, passed out signs reading \u201cHospitals in, ICE Out\u201d ahead of the meeting. She said the legislation won\u2019t end deportations in Upper Darby, but it is a \u201creally important first step.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a township and a community that has a lot of unmet needs,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a really important statement to say that we\u2019re not going to be using our police force, our property, or any of our resources to support ICE.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Immigration enforcement detentions have been going on in Upper Darby well before the Trump administration, she said, and funding for ICE has steadily increased over the years under both parties. But under the current administration and with increased funding for federal immigration enforcement, ICE is \u201con steroids.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe result has been here in our community, here in Upper Darby, a lot of workers have been targeted by ICE, separated from their families,\u201d Burnette said. \u201cOur local businesses have been impacted negatively because people don\u2019t want to come around.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The environment of fear is also impacting young people, she said.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re mostly here for our young people because we really believe that no young person or child in our community needs to feel like they don\u2019t belong or that they\u2019re not safe in their own community, which is something that we\u2019ve seen happening,\u201d Burnette said.
\n\"PeoplePeople line up to speak at a public hearing for Upper Darby Township Council\u2019s ordinance restricting collaboration with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Sept. 16, 2026. (Emily Neil\/WHYY)\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bernhardt said he has been visiting houses of worship and other community spaces to inform immigrant residents that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[5202,147,149,148,150],"class_list":["post-288389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upper-darby","tag-immigration-and-customs-enforcement","tag-upper-darby","tag-upper-darby-headlines","tag-upper-darby-news","tag-upper-darby-township"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288389","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=288389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}