(Update: Sept. 17, 8:45 a.m.) A spokesperson for Suffolk Sheriff Errol Touon Jr. said this morning that the sheriff will not participate in today’s roundtable discussion.
Original story: A roundtable on immigration issues planned by Rep. Lee Zeldin tomorrow morning has drawn ire from immigrant advocates and organizations that have not been invited to participate.
The NY-01 Republican is hosting the roundtable with House Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte (R, VA-06) and the group he will convene at 10 a.m. tomorrow on the eastern campus of Suffolk County College mostly comprises law enforcement officials: the FBI, the Suffolk police commissioner, district attorney, county sheriff and “other law enforcement agencies,” according to a media advisory issued by Zeldin’s office Friday. Also participating in the roundtable are “victims’ families,” the L.I. Farm Bureau and a Hampton Bays community group that focuses on combatting illegal and overcrowded rental housing.
The roundtable will be a “discussion on our nation’s immigration system, combating gang violence and MS-13, drug trafficking, human trafficking, our broken visa system and efforts being undertaken to address all of these issues,” Zeldin’s press release said.
The session, which will take place in the Montaukett Learning Resource Center on the community college’s eastern campus, will not be open to the public, a spokesperson for Zeldin said Sunday night.
Zeldin has made the issue of MS-13 gang violence a priority and has largely aligned himself with President Donald Trump on immigration issues. In May, he flew with the president on Air Force One to a roundtable discussion in Bethpage about efforts to combat MS-13 and other violent gangs.
Immigrant advocates criticize the president for conflating undocumented immigrants and members of violent criminal gangs like MS-13. Advocates say that immigrants are usually the main targets of gang violence, human trafficking, and other issues that will be discussed at tomorrow’s meeting.
“We invited the Long Island Farm Bureau which has always spoken up very effectively on behalf of their immigrant workforce,” Zeldin’s communications director Katie Vincentz said in an email late Sunday night. “Other than that, the focus of this particular roundtable is to hear from law enforcement experts on their efforts and proposals,” she said.
“If the true interest of this gathering was protection of victims of exploitation, including gang violence and every other exploitation, then there would most definitely be a seat at the table for every Long Island immigrant activist group,” executive director of OLA of Eastern Long Island Minerva Perez said. “The fact that there isn’t shows the truth of this meeting which focuses on fear and fulmination of anti-immigrant sentiment.”
Maria Piedrabuena contributed reporting.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect a response from Rep. Zeldin’s spokesperson received after its original publication.
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