Letter from Paul Mendelsohn

Why Cooperate With ICE?

After long, independently maintaining peace and the rule of law in Otsego County, our sheriff’s office is presently in an agreement to cooperate with ICE—which has become a rogue agency engaged not in arresting “the worst of the worst,” but in randomly kidnapping people of color, often without a judge’s warrant, by masked men in plain clothes, showing no identification and with no accountability.

Dishwashers, mothers, gardeners, people who arrived as small children reportedly disappear to private prisons at undisclosed locations, simply vanishing from their communities and their families—along with a far smaller number of people who are legitimately arrested.

ICE, with its unlimited budget, attempts to meet an arbitrary goal of one million deportations per year. They have been breaking legal agreements and arresting legal residents. Trump now threatens to illegally deport naturalized citizens. He threatens to target ethnic groups.

Why have 55 of 62 counties in New York State opted out of this agreement? As this mission continues to widen—and as those charged with upholding the law are then asked to act illegally—has our sheriff’s office now surrendered its agency and agreed to unrestrained complicity?

This administration will be held to account after next year’s midterms. GOP members of Congress are retiring in record numbers. Those responsible for the wanton cruelty and chaos will, in time, be held to account. Those of us who once pledged liberty and justice for all every morning must find the courage to demand that we live by our convictions once again.

Paul Mendelsohn
Cherry Valley