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Residents press council for immigrant protections, demand $300,000 fund and bans on ICE activity on city property
Summary
Speakers during public comment urged Montclair officials to create a $300,000 fund for families affected by ICE actions, ban ICE staging on city property, prohibit city contracts with vendors that provide data to immigration agencies, and investigate why their neighborhood is being targeted.
During the public-comment period at the Montclair City Council meeting, resident Caitlyn Shaw presented a four-part set of demands intended to protect immigrant families and to limit local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.
Shaw asked the council to: (1) establish a $300,000 fund to support families affected by ICE raids, (2) ban ICE staging on city property, (3) prohibit city contracts with contractors that provide data collection to immigration agencies (she cited concerns about Flock cameras), and (4) investigate why the neighborhood appears to be targeted by enforcement. "More than six weeks ago, your residents asked for four things to support our immigrant community," she said.
Shaw said five residents were detained in Montclair in late April (she enumerated three on April 21, one on April 23 and one on April 26) and urged the council to place the listed items on a future agenda. "Since our last meeting in the last two weeks, five people have been kidnapped by ICE in Montlair," she said in the transcript.
Caitlyn Shaw also compared Montclair to nearby Ontario and said the city has a much smaller population while reporting the higher number of recent detentions. The transcript records a population figure as "37 approximately," an unclear transcription that may be missing digits; the exact population figure is not specified in the meeting record.
Council response and next steps: The council did not take formal action on the requests during the meeting; the transcript shows a request from staff and the city attorney to go into closed session on certain litigation items later in the agenda but does not record council direction to staff on the four demands. Shaw said she "look[s] forward to these being on a future city agenda," but the transcript does not show a date for that follow-up.
Ending: The meeting proceeded to consent items and then recessed to closed session; the public requests for a $300,000 fund and the other measures were not resolved in open session in the transcript provided.
