ONEONTA— The Oneonta Common Council unanimously passed a resolution Tuesday, Nov. 18 addressing federal immigration and deportation policy, expressing solidarity with law-abiding immigrants in the community.
At the start of the meeting, Mayor Mark Drnek read aloud the resolution, which reads very similarly to a resolution passed by the Cooperstown Board of Trustees in August. He said it was his honor to put the resolution forward to the council.
The city’s Community Police Board voted Tuesday, Oct. 7 to recommend the Common Council endorse a resolution to clarify the city’s immigration policy. At the council’s meeting later that same day, it voted to table the resolution to allow the body more time to review the resolution.
The resolution stated that among the immigrants seeking asylum in the United States who live in Oneonta and Otsego County are individuals who have been “subject to seizure, detention, and deportation by actions of the federal Department of Homeland Security.”
“The City of Oneonta is home to people of diverse backgrounds, abilities, and identities, from communities of diverse beliefs and cultures, including immigrants and native-born citizens,” the resolution stated.
It added that Oneonta is a “regional center for commerce, higher education, health care and culture” that welcomes people from all places. It stated that the city supports due process and humane treatment and the following of legal procedures for all immigrant community members.
The “seizure, detention, and impending deportation of law-abiding immigrants,” can negatively impact the economy, health and welfare of residents in the city, the resolution stated, and is “contrary to the values of the rule of law and due process owed to all persons.”
The city “denounces, in the strongest terms, the increase of hate speech, intimidation, violence, and hate crimes targeted against immigrants, refugees, and people of diverse racial, ethnic, religious, and linguistic backgrounds,” the resolution stated.
Compared to the resolution passed in Cooperstown, the Oneonta version was almost exactly the same with only a few small changes, like switching out Board of Trustees for the Common Council, and designating Oneonta as a hub for commerce and higher education rather than a “tourist destination” and “home to a major medical facility.”
Len Carson, R-Fifth Ward, asked if the city attorney and police chief had “signed off on the resolution.” He then asked if it could put the body at any point of litigation, and City Attorney David Merzig said he sees no objection to the resolution. Carson also asked if the resolution pertained specifically to immigrants pursuing the legal immigration process, and Drnek said that that was what the resolution stated.
Michael Forster Rothbart, D-Seventh Ward, said in the process of working
out the resolution that he had pushed for a stronger statement. He said he was ultimately convinced by colleagues that the main goal should be to come up with something everybody on the council can agree on. “I think this is just the beginning of the discussion, and I look forward to next year seeing what progresses,” Forster Rothbart said. “It is important that the people know we’ve got their backs.”
Mark Wolff, a member of the Otsego Refugee Resettlement Coalition, attended the initial police board meeting Monday, Sept. 29 during which the resolution was introduced. He said Monday that a lot of the coalition’s concerns centered around due process and city policy in regards to cooperation with ICE.
The coalition helps those coming into the community with refugee status or special immigrant visa status to find housing and employment and enroll for school, among other things.
Carli Ficano, a member of the Otsego Refugee Resettlement Coalition steering committee, said at the Sept. 29 meeting that four people from both the city and town of Oneonta had been detained under three occasions where ICE operated in the city.
At that meeting, the coalition urged the city and council to work toward a statement similar to those passed in nearby areas like Utica and Cooperstown. Wolff said he felt the police board meeting was productive, as Oneonta Police Chief Christopher Witzenburg made it clear he could only do so much related to ICE presence in the city.
“It sends a strong signal to those who are vulnerable right now and feel threatened by ICE operations that the local community stands with them,” Wolff said. “To be a target of ICE detention is a terrifying prospect. To know that the city government will do whatever is legally possible to protect those who are vulnerable is, would think, reassuring.”
This article was originally published on the Daily Star
