Lake Worth Beach officials struggle to respond to outcry over immigration raids
'A no-win situation for us. We are damned if we do and damned if we don't'
Lake Worth Beach commissioners are feeling pressure from activists demanding the city’s elected leaders do more to help residents who are living in fear of immigration raids.
Exactly what, if anything, can be done was the topic of a spirited discussion by four commissioners Friday, less than a day after 150 people attended a vigil at the Guatemalan Maya Center to raise awareness to local families torn apart by the state and federal policies.
“I want to be sensitive to the needs of our community and I also want to be sensitive to law and order. I just don’t know how to thread that needle in a way that doesn’t make us more of a target,’’ Commissioner Mimi May at a pre-agenda workshop Friday.
The workshop’s purpose was to discuss topics on the agenda for the commission’s next regular meeting on Dec. 16. Immigration isn’t on the agenda, but May said she felt the need to broach the topic Friday morning because of growing community outcry after the latest raid, Dec. 8, by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Florida Highway Patrol.
“I want to know more about what is going on, what is hyperbole, what is actually happening. We hear these awful, awful, awful stories. And I’m sure part of them are true, and I’m sure part of them are exaggerated,’’ May said.
“These poor children have no family, have no parents left. I know it’s not up to us to change any of that. And making a statement, I don’t know what that would even do, but I just know it needs to be recognized in some way.’’
Activists have accused the federal and state agencies of racial profiling to target workers instead of criminals and detaining people for minor traffic infractions and without warrants.
Commissioner Chris McVoy, who has butted heads with commissioners earlier this year over his criticisms of immigration policies, assured May that the concerns “are not exaggerated.’’
“It is bad,’’ he said Friday. “And I have yet to hear of even one case in Lake Worth where the person was actually a criminal.’’
McVoy was the only city commissioner who attended the vigil Thursday. May said she would have liked to attend but was not aware of it.
Hours before the vigil, GMC activists said they posted 200 signs on public streets across Lake Worth Beach alleging: “ICE kidnapped a community member here” and “Florida Highway Patrol kidnapped someone here.”
Many of those signs were torn down by people in the community almost as fast as they were put up, activists said.
“The signs were not an act of aggression. The signs were a conversation starter,’’ Mariana Blanco, the GMC’s director of operations, said at the vigil. “We can’t continue to let our … city officials, our government officials act like this is not happening in our city. We have to start being honest about what we are living in.’’
Vice Mayor Sarah Malega took issue with the sign-posting strategy. “Having the Guatemala Mayan Center go around and put up 200 signs that are code violations and blight our entire city and make other residents angry isn’t helping,’’ she said.
Malega said she has offered help “behind the scenes” to residents affected by federal immigration policies. But she said many residents have called City Hall to voice support for the immigration policies of President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“There’s a huge disconnect between the two sides. Not everyone thinks this is a bad thing happening,’’ said Mayor Betty Resch, who said she got “backlash” after sharing a social media post one day about ICE officers in Boynton Beach.
Lake Worth Beach officials can’t circumvent federal and state immigration policies, Resch said. And if even they tried, she said, there’s a good chance those governments could retaliate by withholding city-earmarked funding.
“We just got (state) funding for a very important secondary monitoring well. I don’t know that I want to be the mayor who puts that into jeopardy because that’s something the city needs,’’ she said.
“There’s a no-win situation for us,’’ the mayor said. “We are damned if we do and damned if we don’t.’’
Commissioners, repeating concerns voiced in August, said they are worried the policies are eroding community trust in the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, which provides police services to Lake Worth Beach.
“It’s unfortunate but many folks in the community are lumping (inaccurately) PBSO in with the other agencies,’’ McVoy said in a letter Dec. 11 to PBSO Capt. Terrence Carn.
“Folks’ horror at watching parents yanked from their kids, at kids living in daily fear of coming home to missing parents, has left many many folks in fear and loathing for all forms of law enforcement,’’ McVoy wrote.
Also Thursday, the Lake Worth Democratic Club wrote a letter urging city commissioners to formally ask FHP and ICE:
That only individuals convicted of FBI Part I crimes be apprehended within the City;
That all apprehending and supporting officers be unmasked;
That the use of unmarked vehicles is not permitted;
That all apprehending and supporting officers be identified as to agency, officer’s name, and officer’s badge number, and that all of the above are clearly legible, both front and back, from a distance of 30 feet;
That FHP, ICE, PBSO and any other law enforcement agency operating in Lake Worth Beach provide the City Commission, on a biweekly basis, with a list of all individuals apprehended within the city boundaries and copies of arrest warrants.
Lake Worth Beach, where nearly 46 percent of the population is Hispanic, should take the lead from other cities that have resisted the policies, McVoy.
“We could add that and say, ‘In our city, we have a duty to protect our residents. You cannot just come in without a warrant and arrest people. That’s kidnapping,’’’ he said.
Told by his colleagues that the city probably can’t legally do that, McVoy said: “Let them challenge us in court.’’
“We don’t need to go to court to fight the federal government,’’ Resch said.
“Well, plenty of other places have,’’ McVoy said.
“Maybe they have more money than we have,’’ the mayor replied.
“It’s not even about the money’’ Malega said. “It’s about the fact that we represent 46,000 people and there are people who don’t want their money spent on” fighting immigration policies in court.
Politically, there’s no easy solution.
“I think most of us are aware that from one side we are getting ‘this is horrible and it should stop’ and from the other side we are getting ‘this is what America needs to do,’’ Resch said.
But Blanco said it’s past time for city leaders to do something.
“We have lived a year of this administration’s cruel immigration policies,’’ she said. “We have seen the devastation, we have seen the suffering and it’s time we start taking action and start holding our elected officials accountable for what they are not doing.’’
City commissioner Anthony Segrich did not attend the Friday workshop.
Watch the full discussion, starting at the 29:00 mark, in this video.
The Hispanic voters of lake Worth Beach are watching.
Lake Worth Beach is nearly 46% Hispanic. There may be more to this. Wealthy real estate developers have put their collective eye on this area. With the help of the current administration, the raids could wipe out the working-class, Hispanic population, so the developers can have carte blanche to build expensive real estate.