Ongoing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in Norristown has sparked widespread outrage and calls for far-reaching action.
ICE’s recent detainment of three people while school children watched in horror at their Norristown bus stop has increased calls by Montco Community Watch for all 62 municipalities to adopt immigrant welcoming policies in the suburban Philadelphia county.
Since January 2025, more than 500 people have been detained in Montgomery County by ICE. About 50% of those people lived in and around Norristown.
“I don’t believe we can stop ICE detentions but we can document what is happening, and we can help in the long run,” said Stephanie Vincent, Montco Community Watch lead organizer.
The latest ICE activity amplified demands by Montco Community Watch, a grass-roots raid monitoring group in Montgomery County to call for stronger county-wide welcoming policies.
WHYY reported Montco Community Watch has also called on Gov. Josh Shapiro to act.
“Our local officials cannot control federal immigration policy, but they can decide what kind of community we want to be,” Vincent said. “Welcoming policies are one way our municipalities can make clear that immigrant families belong here and that local governments will work to protect the safety and dignity of everyone in the community.”
In July last year an ICE raid resulted in at least 14 people being taken from a Super Gigante grocery store in Norristown, WHYY reported.
“ICE has been terrorizing the immigrant community of Montgomery County since this administration took office,” Vincent said.
She said the recent Sept. 19 bus stop event, in which “ICE stalked and took three men getting into a van to go to work,” was conducted as vulnerable schoolchildren watched.
“That is a tragedy in and of itself, but I fear that if this assault continues it’s only a matter of time before something horrible happens here,” Vincent added.
Under welcoming policies, which protect immigrants and their families, municipal and law enforcement agree not to share data or cooperate with ICE agents or federal immigration officals without due process or judicial bench warrants.
Welcoming policies focus on social and economic inclusion and are different from sanctuary cities, where local officials strictly limit their law enforcement actions with federal immigration agents.
Welcoming agreements are a way for “local officials to not enable this kind of unconstitutional behavior,” said Rabbi Elyse Wechterman, a Montco Community Watch lead organizer, Abington Township Rabbi and local activist.
The Marshall Project reported since Donald Trump’s second term began Jan. 20, 2025, more than 610,000 people have been held or detained farther from the border and for longer periods of time.
Wechterman said while welcoming policies apply to individual municipalities and “can vary [they] essentially make it clear police departments and municipal employees will not do anything beyond the law” when it comes to seeking out or detaining people.
She said the organization’s goal is for all 62 Montgomery County municipalities to adopt welcoming policies so immigrant families feel safer and better supported in the communities in which they live.
“So far, Cheltenham and Lansdale have done so; and several others are in the process,” she added.
Wechterman said Norristown is home to a large immigrant community. The U.S. Census reported Norristown’s population was about 35,900 people in 2025.
“We have tracked nearly 280 [detainments] and most have happened in Norristown. We have seen only two with judicial signed warrants,” Wechterman said. “Most people are being taken without due process, in some cases accused – but not tried. There are our neighbors who have not received due process.”
