SACKETS HARBOR, N.Y. — Around a thousand protesters marched outside White House “border czar” Tom Homan’s home in a small New York village Saturday, calling for the release of three children and their mother whom immigration agents detained at a nearby dairy farm late last month.
Bearing signs criticizing the family's detention and chanting “Bring them home," protesters in Sackets Harbor made the more than 2-mile round-trip march from a nearby park to Homan’s residence.
The march began with a rally organized by the Jefferson County Democratic Committee, which included a written statement from New York Attorney General Letitia James, who said she was “heartbroken and angry” at the family’s detainment.
A handful of counterprotesters joined the march, but the demonstrations remained peaceful. Organizers said they were surprised by the large turnout.
“We’ve seen it occur right in the last 60 days across the country, but when it happens in your backyard, I think that’s what garners people’s attention,” Jefferson County Democratic Committee chair Corey Decillis said.
The three children and their mother were detained after Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents searched a dairy farm on March 27 during a separate child pornography investigation.
The New York Immigration Coalition, a nonprofit organization that campaigns for immigrant rights, told NBC News that the family is being held in Texas.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond Saturday night to a request for comment about the protest or the family’s detention. Homan defended the operation in an interview Thursday with WWNY-TV of Watertown.
“It wasn’t a raid. It was a search warrant execution at a house where a family was found in the country illegally. ICE is doing everything by the book. Once the investigation gets to the point where we don’t have an interest in this family, then a decision will be made on release,” Homan said.
Homan added that investigators are doing their “due diligence.”
Jonna St. Croix said she teaches sixth, ninth and 10th grade at Sackets Harbor Central School. She attended the march because two of the detained children are students in her classes, she said.
“I see them every morning, and they have big smiles on their faces. They always say, ‘Good morning, Miss,’ and [I] give them a snack when they ask for one,” St. Croix said. “It’s very evident when there’s an empty desk, and we miss them.”
Jamie Cook also attended the march. Cook, who is in her first year as principal of Sackets Harbor Central School, said she chose to speak out not in her role as a principal but as someone who knew the three children.
“I’ve driven them to their house after tutoring sessions. I’ve picked them up for tutoring sessions. In this kind of town, this is a car pool town. I know them,” Cook said.
Cook said the students are in the third, 10th grade and 11th grades and had been at the school for three years. She added they declared themselves to immigration authorities before the ICE operation.
According to the State Department of Education, Sackets Harbor Central School had 399 enrolled students across pre-kindergarten through 12th grade during the 2023-24 school year.
Cook and St. Croix emphasized their efforts over the last week to bring some degree of normalcy back to the classroom.
“I’ve been doing everything I can to put some normalcy in place for my students so we can do what we need to do,” St. Croix said. “I’m supporting all of our students, but they’re missed.”
One of the detained children attends a special 15-student program composed of students of more than one district, Cook said. She said recent events have been particularly difficult for those pupils.
“A lot of kids just don’t know what to say or how to say it or what to do, and I think it’s just hard. It’s hard to have difficult conversations with kids, and we as educators are always just trying to create space for them to feel whatever they’re feeling,” she said.
County and village officials also took special precautions ahead of Saturday’s march, such as increasing law enforcement and blocking roads to ensure a peaceful protest.
The village — which has a population of fewer than 1,400 — also considered declaring a state of emergency, though officials ultimately decided not to do so.
Mayor Alex Morgia said Saturday's protest was unlike anything he has dealt with in his nearly four-year tenure as mayor. Yet, he said, he hoped it would serve as an example for the country.
“We’re a small community where most people run into each other all the time. You can walk around our village and stop at the post office and the coffee shop and go to the sandwich bar for lunch in 20 minutes, and you’re going to run into 23 people that you know by name and you probably disagree with on some level of political alignment, but because we are in this small community together, I think it’s easier for us to be polite and respectful of each other’s opinions,” Morgia said.
Organizers and protesters alike said they hoped Saturday’s march caught the attention of Homan, who was born in the nearby town of West Carthage.
“Tom Homan has been in our community his entire life,” Cook said. “He’s so committed to this community. I think that this is a much more quaint experience than what is happening across a lot of other towns and cities in America.”