Is Riverhead prepared for impacts of Trump’s actions on local migrant population?

The following is an open letter to the Riverhead Town Board:

This is an excellent Washington Post analysis of the different categories of migrants the Trump Administration might seek to round up, detain and expel: Deportation at ‘light speed’: How Trump’s crackdown could unfold (Jan. 16, 2025).

Does anyone know how many people in Riverhead fit within the categories it outlines?

Is there any awareness and preparation by the Catholic Church, Hispanic evangelical churches, the  police, Town Hall, the Riverhead schools, the library, social services or farm organizations, including Rural & Migrant Ministries?

How many migrants are currently in the town or county jails?  Is the town going to cooperate with ICE?  What is the local social and economic impact likely to be?

Many migrants are our neighbors, work in and outside our homes, do landscaping and construction, cook in our restaurants, provide care for the elderly and infirm, etc.   Do we know which of them have documents and which do not?  Are we prepared for the local impact of a national crisis?

Until the Trump Administration takes office, we won’t know how much of its language has been campaign rhetoric and how much presages a Draconian policy on a scale far larger than the detention of Japanese Americans during the Second World War or round-ups of Mexicans during the Eisenhower Administration.  

If the latter, we should be prepared and have thought about the consequences in moral, legal, social, economic and administrative terms.

John McAuliff

Roanoke Landing

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