A heated town board meeting in a suburban New York town descended into chaos Tuesday night after officials rejected a proposal to ban ICE agents from using the community's rifle range for training.
Angry residents shouted "Shame!" and "You truly are so awful!" at board members following their decision to maintain a contract allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to train at the local facility, The Daily Beast reported.
Another approached members, saying, "You should be embarrassed, truly.”
The controversy centers on ICE's use of a rifle range in the Long Island town of Islip since 2008 for firearms qualification training, with authorization continuing until June 2026. The arrangement drew public scrutiny after making headlines in July.
Councilman Jorge Guadrón, the board's only Latino member and an immigrant from El Salvador, proposed suspending ICE access until community concerns about agent conduct could be addressed. His resolution aimed to protect "the mental integrity and well-being" of constituents amid "fear, trauma, and destabilization of immigrant families."
During public comment, residents unleashed scathing criticism of the federal agency. One 80-year-old woman declared, "This is fascism. That is what we are witnessing," describing ICE agents as masked figures without proper identification.
"ICE is a different kind of entity than any of the police agencies that we know here," she said. "They don't have identification. They are masked. They are swathed. You don't know who they are."
Another resident compared ICE to "the American Gestapo," while others called agents "brutal thugs" terrorizing the community. Critics accused the town of accepting "ICE blood money" through the rental agreement.
Town Supervisor Angie Carpenter defended the contract, noting the range serves various law enforcement agencies and has operated for over 20 years. Around 150 protesters attended a recent "Ice Out of Islip" demonstration demanding the contract's termination.
