She’s gone but not forgotten.
Or is she forever forsaken?
I’ve asked several local Dunmore and state elected officials to help me locate our frightened 11-year-old after federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on Oct. 29 apprehended the undocumented sixth grader and her father.
Did federal agents deport her and her father back to Honduras? Are they still locked up somewhere in the United States? Are they together?
An ICE spokesman won’t say. And not one local or state elected official, all Democrats, has helped answer my questions. None of these public servants seems to care.
Because the Dunmore Borough website does not list email addresses for the seven council members. I asked my now former Facebook “friend” and councilman William “Trip” O’Malley in a message to provide email addresses for the other council members. I wanted to ask them for help trying to contact our desperate immigrant child.
O’Malley failed to respond.
Trying to prick family man O’Malley’s conscience, I asked in another message if he, like the child, is a descendant of immigrants. I, too, share DNA with an immigrant, my Irish grandfather who dug coal for 45 years in underground Scranton.
O’Malley ignored that message, too.
I wanted to let the child know people in her old hometown still think and care about what happens to her. But now I’m not so sure about their thinking or caring. And I now worry any contact from “home” might upset this child more than make her feel loved and wanted.
Dunmore Mayor Max Conway failed to answer written questions. So did state Sen. Marty Flynn. Other elected state officials who made pious public statements about the Dunmore ICE raid moved on to other business. Dunmore Police Chief Sal Marchese hung up on me when I called and asked him questions.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro remained my last hope.
Drew Popish works as Shapiro’s Northeast Regional Director. In the aftermath of the troubling ICE incident, Popish posted a heartfelt essay on his Facebook page below a photo of an overturned bike the child’s undocumented father reportedly rode before running from ICE. I saw the story when one of Popish’s Facebook friends shared his post.
This is what Shapiro’s Northeast Regional Director wrote:
“This bike breaks my heart. This photo haunts me.
A dad in our community dropped his daughter off at school, got on this bike, and rode to work. ICE stopped him on the street over a missed immigration hearing. No criminal history. No threat. Just a hardworking father.
His sixth-grade daughter found out at school. Instead of going home to her friends and her life, she was taken and deported with him. A child. Taken from her school. A family erased from our community in the middle of an ordinary day.
And who did this? Armored agents showing up like they were storming a battlefield, flexing like they were heroes. That is not toughness. That is insecurity hiding behind body armor. Real strength protects kids and families. It does not traumatize them.
Kids in America are going hungry. Families are losing healthcare. Schools are stretched to the breaking point. People cannot afford housing or mental health care. Yet this is where we send resources? To rip parents off bicycles on their way to work?
This is not safety. This is not justice. It is cruelty pretending to be law and order.
If you are not angry, check your pulse. We can be better than this. We have to be.
#AbolishICE #TrumpIsANationalDisgrace #TrumpAdministration”
It’s a pity Shapiro didn’t write and post what his Northeast Regional Director wrote and posted.
Popish failed to return messages to his cellphone and the governor’s office.
Shapiro press spokeswoman Rosie Lapowski also failed to respond to my emailed question, “Does Gov. Shapiro agree with the post Popish wrote and published?”
“Rebecca,” a “constituent services” representative in the governor’s office who refused to give her last name, said she would not provide an email address for Popish. Rebecca also said no outside phone number exists for Popish but that she would contact him on my behalf. After I told Rebecca why I wanted to talk with Popish, she informed me that “immigration” is a federal issue.
Maybe Rebecca doesn’t know Shapiro holds significant power to help control ICE abuse of local resources. Shapiro has the power to take administrative action, such as ending database access with ICE, ending collaboration between the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections and ICE, strengthening the Pennsylvania State Police ICE policy, protecting information in public benefit programs from ICE, prohibiting immigration enforcement arrests in state facilities and never leasing a state facility to ICE.
Democrat Shapiro also wields powerful political influence with local Democratic officials. Dunmore borough council members and the mayor can stop Dunmore police cooperation with ICE. Dunmore police removed the child from her elementary school and turned her over to ICE. The superintendent of schools described the law enforcement apprehension as “scary” and the child as “upset.”
This act cost Dunmore taxpayers public money better used for true community development. ICE cooperation also cost borough leaders credibility they might never and should not regain.
Have state and local Democratic Party officials abandoned our lost immigrant child? Have these political pretenders shown their deeply tarnished mettle that lacks courage and resilience during increasingly difficult times?
Of course they have.
Will these opportunists turn their backs on other undocumented children who need their help the way they have cast off our lost immigrant child?
Of course they will.
This story is not over. ICE still threatens Northeastern Pennsylvania. Dunmore now endures as a bleak shadow of the town that once took pride in looking out for its own.
