During an intense Lehigh County Commissioners meeting July 9, 20 community members from across the Lehigh Valley used over an hour of the designated citizen input time to discuss grievances and frustrations with recent immigration and customs enforcement activity in the county.

The meeting opened with scores of concerned citizens making their way to the open podium to bring the commissioners’ attention to claims of recent bouts of ICE agents detaining people at the Lehigh Valley Courthouse without proper warrants or identification.

Michelle Downing, a longtime resident of the Lehigh Valley, shared the story of a friend’s grandfather who was detained by ICE while attempting to pick up a new green card after misplacing his previous one. Downing went on to say she received a call that morning he had been found deceased in a Pennsylvania jail.

“He has lived in the Lehigh Valley for the last 15 years, raising a family here. His kids live here, his grandkids live here, the man has never so much as had a parking ticket,” Downing said.

“He shows up to court and he’s gone. And now we know that he is dead. And nobody is responsible, and nobody’s asking questions and nobody can do anything.”

The rest of the speakers had similar stories or thoughts, mentioning people in Lehigh County they knew personally who were being affected by detentions or racial profiling, or things they had heard from fellow community members.

Multiple speakers claimed those who worked in the Lehigh County Courthouse had been allowing ICE agents full access to private areas of the courthouse, such as the judge’s chambers, in order to arrest people in the building.

The speakers brought up a variety of solutions, including the commissioners asking more questions about people being detained, not allowing ICE agents in county buildings, particularly the courthouse and requiring ICE agents to have proper warrants in order to arrest people.

David Harrington, a former Lehigh County Commissioner and current immigration attorney in Allentown, spoke about the “unprecedented difficulties” he had been seeing in his line of work.

Harrington said allowing ICE agents in the courthouse disrupts the court and prevents individuals from exercising their Sixth Amendment right to confrontation.

“These are masked agents that aren’t identifying themselves and are causing panic, and while we don’t have the ability to legislate that away, we certainly don’t need to be opening up our internal compartments to ICE agents,” Harrington said.

“That disrupts our citizens, that causes terror and that disrupts our courts.”

After listening to the community’s comments, Lehigh County Commissioners Geoff Brace, Zach Cole-Borghi, Sheila Alvarado, April Riddick, Jeff Dutt and Jon Irons spoke to their concerns, promising to question what had been happening at the courthouse and looking into what else they could do to help the community.

“You do have fighters up here. You do have people, regardless of what some people think, that do care. We fight everyday. Just because we’re here on the board doesn’t mean that we’re not in the community doing our work,” Riddick said.

“But we’re in a dilemma right now: what are we going to do as a county, as people, to protect our loved ones?”

The meeting continued with the regularly scheduled agenda items. A resolution sponsored by Irons was deferred from the June 25 meeting to approve a contract for medical services for the inmates of the Department of Corrections from Primecare Medical; Riddick was the sole vote against, citing concerns about suicides occurring under Primecare’s watch.

The resolution passed 8-1 and will be voted on again at the next commissioner meeting.

Alvarado sponsored a resolution to support state transit funding to assist Lehigh County and its residents.

The resolution earned opposition from commissioners Antonio Pineda and Dutt, who both stated they hadn’t been able to dig into what the bill would truly entail since it was put on the agenda a day before the meeting.

“I don’t know enough about this bill or this part of the budget to give an opinion on it,” Dutt said.

“As in the past, we have been very discerning as a board about things that we send resolutions to in the state and federal government as well.”

All commissioners highlighted their support of the Lehigh and Northampton Transportation Authority despite their differing opinions on the resolution. The resolution passed 6-2 and will go to its second reading at the next meeting scheduled July 23.

The meeting adjourned with the rest of the agenda items passing with no opposition.