The mother and children detained by immigration authorities about two weeks ago in the small New York village where President Donald Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, lives were released Monday.
Jennifer Gaffney, superintendent of the Sackets Harbor Central School District, where the children are students, had been leading efforts to ensure the family’s release since they were detained on March 27 and sent to the Karnes County Detention Facility in Texas.
“After eleven days of uncertainty, our students and their mother are returning home,” Gaffney said in a statement Monday. “We remain committed to providing the care, understanding, and sensitivity necessary for all students and staff as we begin the healing process from this traumatic experience.”
A senior official in the Department of Homeland Security confirmed to NBC News that the family is set to return home.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said in a statement Monday afternoon that she spoke with Homan, who confirmed to her that the family is “currently on their way back” to Sackets Harbor in Jefferson County.
“I cannot imagine the trauma these kids and their mom are feeling, and I pray they will be able to heal when they return home,” Hochul said.
Corey DeCillis, chairman of the Jefferson County Democratic Committee, who organized a demonstration Saturday demanding the family’s release, told NBC News he was “elated.”
According to the senior DHS official, agents with Homeland Security Investigations and Border Patrol were executing a criminal search warrant at Old McDonald’s Farm in Sackets Harbor on March 27 in relation to an ongoing federal investigation into the possession and distribution of child sexual abuse materials.
The DHS official said authorities arrested seven people who were undocumented, including the mother and her three children, while at the farm. The official did not specify how authorities encountered the people arrested.
“Homeland Security Investigations immediately conducted an investigation to ensure these children were not being sexually exploited,” the official added.
Immigrant rights advocates, school officials and Hochul pushed back, questioning why arresting them and “disappearing them” from their community ensured the children’s safety.
Murad Awawdeh, president and chief executive officer of the New York Immigration Coalition, said in an interview with NBC News on Monday that what happened to the Sackets Harbor family was “a very grueling and horrifying experience.”
In an open letter last week, Jaime Cook, principal of Sackets Harbor Central School, said the family “lived in a house on the same road as a home ICE had a warrant for. The fact that ICE went door to door is unfathomable.”
“The fact that our students were handcuffed and put into the same van as the alleged criminal from down the street is unconscionable,” Cook’s letter read.
Hochul said Tuesday she “cannot think of any public safety justification for ICE agents to rip an innocent family, including a child in the third grade, from their Sackets Harbor home.”
Cook said the children are in the third, 10th and 11th grades and had been at the school for three years.
The mother and her three children were taken when immigration authorities were searching the Old McDonald’s Farm for a South African immigrant, who has since been charged with distribution of child pornography.
The South African immigrant’s arrest was part of an “enhanced targeted operation” from Immigration and Customs Enforcement in western, central and northern New York from March 24 to 28.
Homan had defended the operation and the family’s arrest in an interview with WWNY-TV of Watertown last week.
“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.
Cook said the family had long been part of the Sackets Harbor community, working at the farm for 15 years. She said that from showing up to their court hearings to declaring themselves to immigration judges, the mother and children had also been “doing everything right” to find a path to remain in the U.S. legally.
Awawdeh said he hopes the family can effectively resume these efforts.
As the community awaits the family’s return, Awawdeh said they are “a testament to how community support can really make a difference in helping secure the release of your neighbor.”
