most notably Minneapolis, <\/a>resulting in mass protests, violence and even death.<\/p>\nICE agents have flooded the streets of Twin Cities Minneapolis and St. Paul, leading to the Jan 7 fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE agent. One week later, an ICE officer shot a man in the leg during an attempted arrest. Violent protests have erupted across both cities.<\/p>\n
The terms of the rental agreement were executed under former county executive Phil Armstrong. <\/p>\n
Josh Siegel, a former state lawmaker from the 22nd House District, was elected Lehigh County Executive last year. Democrats have a 7-2 majority on the board of commissioners.<\/p>\n
Siegel did not immediately return a PennLive request for comment; neither did the two Republican commissioners. <\/p>\n
Pinsley said ICE maintains a presence across Lehigh Valley. Latinos account for a significant and growing demographic in the Lehigh Valley, including upwards of 50% of the population in cities like Allentown, Bethlehem, and Reading.<\/p>\n
The region broadly reflects the political landscape of Pennsylvania with Democratic urban centers surrounded by swing suburbs and more conservative rural areas. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re in our courts on a regular basis,\u201d Pinsely said. \u201cThey\u2019re in our courtrooms…in our court building. They\u2019ve been down at some of the work sites. They were at the Home Depot not so long ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pinsley notes that county taxpayers have absorbed the cost of utilities, maintenance, and operational costs, instead of the federal agency.<\/p>\n
He said the situation dates back three years when an agreement was reached between the county and DHS that the agency would rent the space. Pinsley said the agreement was fast tracked, suggesting an immediate need. He said that at the time a memorandum of agreement was executed. Pinsley said the DHS signatory did not have the authority to sign the agreement.<\/p>\n
Pinsley said the discrepancy came to light recently with the change of the guard at the top of county government. <\/p>\n
He said that at some point \u201cthere was just a lot of back and forth that was happening trying to get the contract signed. And in the end it was never signed.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lehigh County\u2019s top financial elected official is calling for the eviction of ICE from county-owned property. Mark Pinsley,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[1607,153,155,154,1608],"class_list":{"0":"post-91981","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-bestof","9":"tag-bethlehem","10":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","11":"tag-bethlehem-news","12":"tag-topix"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91981","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=91981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}