GOSHEN – Several hundred people – black, brown, white, Christians and Jews, gathered outside the Orange County Jail in Goshen Monday evening to call for an end the incarceration of undocumented people by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the orders of the Trump Administration.
The rally, organized by Rabbi Marcus Rubenstein of Temple Sinai in Middletown, was held at the county jail because the sheriff’s office houses detainees for ICE.
The rabbi acknowledged the Orange County Correctional Facility (OCCF) is treating the detainees housed there humanely, but he said the detention of families, being pulled apart, must come to an end.
Most people at the rally carried handmade signs calling for an end to the practice of incarcerating people crossing the border illegally.
Prayers were sung and an impromptu band played.
A statement by the county sheriff’s office said “Any person being detained by ICE and housed within the OCCF is there as part of the legal process established by law. Most of the detainees have committed crimes within the United States separate and apart from the crime of illegally crossing into the United States, some are subject to active judicial deportation orders as a result thereof.”
The sheriff’s office said if Orange County Government “chose to discontinue housing federal detainees, it would not result in the release of those detainees. It would result in many detainees being transferred from one of the most accredited jails in the country to a facility that is not so.”
