BETHLEHEM, Pa. (WFMZ) — A town hall about ICE’s presence in the Lehigh Valley was held Thursday night at the United Steelworkers Union Hall in Bethlehem.<\/p>\n
People from all over the community attended to learn more about what they can do if they or someone they know encounters ICE.<\/p>\n
“You only have a certain amount of time to get an attorney, have someone advocate for you, because if you’re held in an ICE detention center, most often than not, they’re going to be moving you within a week or two,” said Clarice James with M.I.R.A.<\/p>\n
Conflicts over ICE in Bethlehem are nothing new. This past summer, 17 workers were detained by immigration agents while they worked to restore a fire-damaged apartment complex on the city’s South Side. The arrests prompted a massive rally in the city denouncing ICE’s actions.<\/p>\n
“Seeing and knowing that ICE escalation was coming down the pipe, a group of faith leaders, non-profit organizations. political organizations, immigration advocates and immigrants came together to stand up this network. It’s called the emergency response network. We have a hotline now. If there is suspected ICE activity, known ICE activity or other concerns, you can call that hotline,” said Lehigh County Commissioner Jon Irons.<\/p>\n
Thursday’s town hall was moderated by Lehigh County Controller Mark Pinsley and served as a call to action.<\/p>\n
“Those that are being arrested are drug addicts or they’re this or they’re that. That’s part of it, is making sure everyone knows these people are good people,” Pinsley stated.<\/p>\n
We reached out to ICE for comment. We’re waiting for a response.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. (WFMZ) — A town hall about ICE’s presence in the Lehigh Valley was held Thursday night…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[4737,153,155,154,32114,9570,28,3522,32115],"class_list":{"0":"post-58724","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-attorney","9":"tag-bethlehem","10":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","11":"tag-bethlehem-news","12":"tag-bethlehem-works","13":"tag-jon-irons","14":"tag-pennsylvania","15":"tag-thursday","16":"tag-united-steelworkers-union-hall"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58724","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=58724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}