Gov. Hochul announces release of detained family

ALBANY — Weeks of rallies and protests by a small upstate community led Monday to the release of a mother and her three children who were detained last month by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the release Monday afternoon.

The three children and their mother have been detained since March 27 when ICE agents raided a Jefferson County dairy farm, saying they were seeking a suspect in an investigation into child pornography. Seven people were detained, including the family, and taken to ICE locations outside New York state.

The family was held in Texas, according to a report from NBC News.

There as no immediate comment or details provided from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Local teachers, the school principal and neighbors in the village of Sacketts Harbor pushed local and New York State officials to act. More than 1,000 people on Saturday protested outside the nearby home of Tom Homan, the border czar for President Donald Trump.

Neighbors of the detained family shouted, “Bring them home!” according to media coverage that went nationwide. One sign outside Homan’s home read, “The Constitution is not a suggestion.” 

“We’re a small community where most people run into each other all the time,” Sacketts Harbor Mayor Alex Morgia told NBC News Saturday. “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.”

“Basically, law enforcement was executing a warrant for a person who was allegedly involved in a crime,” said Sacketts Harbor school Superintendent Jennifer Gaffney in an interview with North Country Public Radio. “This happened at a local farm within my school district boundaries … my students were caught in the middle of that raid, and they were taken and detained.”

Hochul on Monday called the federal action “cruel.”

“A third grader, two teenagers and their mother are currently on their way back to Jefferson County,” Hochul said in a statement Monday afternoon. “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 the state will work with ICE to apprehend gang members and violent criminals, “but I will never support cruel actions that rip kids out of school or tear families apart.”

Last week, Homan in an interview with WWNY TV in Watertown had defended the action.

“First of all, the family is not in a jail,” Homan told WWNY. “They’re in a family residential center, it’s an open-air campus. So, the investigators are doing their due diligence. The victim witness specialists are reviewing the safety and security of the children, medical evaluations — it’s usually a part of the investigation, so the investigation continues. It’s a criminal investigation.”