A person was arrested Saturday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, in a Central Bucks County township park.
According to Plumstead Township Police Chief David Mettin, the arrest was made at the Joseph E. Hanusey III Community Park located at 4757 Gordon Road, behind The Overlook at Carriage Hill development. Mettin provided the location of the arrest in previously published reports.
“I am alarmed this happened next door, and I am concerned for people [here] who are not white,” said Justin Stezelberger, a resident of The Overlook at Carriage Hill, a residential community across from Hanusey Park.
“No local police were involved and it is unknown if the [Bucks County] sheriffs were involved,” Police Chief Mettin said in an email.
Efforts to reach Bucks County Sheriff Fred Harran were unsuccessful as were efforts to reach ICE officials for comment.
“From what we can tell, Harran’s deputies were not involved,” a representative from ACLU PA said in an email.
Also on July 12, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., the Plumstead Police Department held a “Christmas in July” food drive at a Giant Food Store located at 4377 W. Swamp Road in Doylestown, Central Bucks Now reported.
Mettin said in a report published by Bucks County Courier Times the ICE apprehension and food collection events were unrelated. The publication reported Mettin learned the person taken by ICE on July 12 in Plumstead was “wanted on an administrative warrant, known as a Final Order of Removal.”
A Final Order of Removal is a judge’s decision that a person must leave the United States, and it directs officials to locate and enforce the person’s deportation. It is a binding legal decision and signals the end of immigration processes to remain in the country. More removal information may be found on the American Immigration Council’s website.
READ: Many Police Forces Have Found ICE 287(g) Partnerships Undermine Public Safety
“Our county is now a place with a climate of fear because our Republican representatives are okay with ICE activities and what our sheriff is doing” in Bucks County, said Laura Foster, an organizer and member of Upper Bucks United, an organizing unit of Indivisible.
CBS.com also reported on Wednesday that ICE took into custody 14 people from a Super Gigante at the West Norriton Farmers Market on West Main Street in neighboring Montgomery County.
“Diversity is what makes us stronger, and now we’ve become equated with countries that are not taking care of people,” Foster said.
