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Resident urges Woodstock council to oppose ICE raids, criticizes religious invocation at meeting
Summary
At the Feb. 9 meeting a resident, Martha Jean Schindler, criticized the invocation’s religious tone and urged the council to take positions opposing local cooperation with ICE, to require agency identification and warrants, and to improve transparency including a regular newsletter.
At the Feb. 9 Woodstock City Council meeting, resident Martha Jean Schindler used the public comment period to criticize the use of an explicitly Christian invocation at the start of the meeting and to urge the council to act to protect residents from federal immigration enforcement activity.
"A city council meeting is a civic forum, not a church service," Schindler said, calling attention to comments in the invocation asking that the city "be known as a city that loves God and loves our neighbor." She argued that not all residents are Christian and that the council should live by the values it invokes.
Schindler said federal immigration enforcement has escalated near Woodstock, alleging a federal purchase of a large warehouse in Social Circle for a detention facility and saying recent local arrests on Dupree Road resulted in 27 people taken from their homes. She quoted a string of national and state figures alleging increases in ICE custody and said people have died in custody, citing names she said had died in recent months. Schindler called on the council to "advocate for oversight," to back measures requiring ICE agents to identify themselves and obtain warrants, and to "pledge non cooperation with unlawful raids."
She also criticized the city’s practice of holding a state-of-the-city event on private property with an admission fee and said organizers had called police on peaceful protesters. Schindler urged the council to publish a regular newsletter disclosing council actions and budgets and to stop holding public events on private property.
Mayor Michael Caldwell thanked Schindler for her remarks and the council moved on to the next agenda item. No formal council response or vote on the policy requests occurred during the meeting.
Schindler’s comments included assertions about ICE operations and local enforcement practices that were not corroborated during the public meeting; the council did not place an item on the agenda at that meeting to consider the policy requests raised in public comment.
