Protest in Tannersville After ICE Raid

Senator Michelle Hinchey (center with baseball cap) was one guest speaker along with local attorney Greg Lubow (standing to the Senator’s left) when a “Support Our Immigrant Community” rally took place in the village of Tannersville, last weekend. (Photo courtesy of Ellen Schorsch).

TANNERSVILLE - “He is what we would call an American success story,” said Greg Lubow, a Tannersville attorney and participant in a passionate gathering held,  April 25, to “Support Our Immigrant Community.”

Lubow was referring to Francisco “Pancho” Marmolejo-Silva, a longtime local contractor taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents ten days earlier in the mountaintop village.

Marmolejo-Silva was reportedly one of at least two people detained by ICE officers in the immediate area that morning reportedly including Gerardo Sales Barragan in the town of Windham.

The “Love Your Neighbor” rally included Senator Michelle Hinchey, a guest speaker among others invited by the Mountaintop Progressives to “join a peaceful and respectful gathering.”

Lubow, in a subsequent phone interview, praised the event and told of his relationship with Marmolejo-Silva, a respected resident and business owner..

“People were out in the rain in support of a neighbor. Senator Hinchey was brilliant,” said Lubow, who also spoke to the assembled citizens.

“As I’ve said since this happened, Pancho is what I think of as the classic American Success story except he was not born in America.

“ I’m not naive. I understand the border was being overrun,” Lubow said. “But it is terrible what [ICE] is doing here. 

“As far as I know, these men have no criminal record. Why there was a need to come and pick Pancho up, I have no idea,” Lubow said.

“Pancho is a friend of mine,” Lubow said, detailing why he came out in the inclement spring weather and why he had written a letter-to-the-editor at the Mountain Eagle prior to the rally.

“I have known Pancho for some 25 years. We met when he was working in local restaurants. He and others have worked for me, and many of

my neighbors, over the years,” Lubow wrote

“Eventually he became a painting contractor – on both sides of the mountaintop. He bought equipment and trucks and all of his supplies at

the local lumber yards and hardware stores on both sides of the mountaintop,” Lubow wrote.

“How many tens of thousands of dollars a year did he spend with those

suppliers? He developed a reputation for quality work completed in a timely manner. Last year he bought a house.

“There are many hundreds of undocumented people throughout Greene County. There are thousands throughout the Hudson Valley. They are people who have come to America, and settled here to earn a living

and raise a family,” Lubow wrote.

“They come from all over the world – Mexico, Ireland, Poland, Ukraine, Pakistan, any number of Central and South American or South Asian countries. And they are part of the fabric of our towns and villages.

“The Texas Restaurant Association, fearing labor shortages, is asking the Government to provide exceptions for their workers, and farm workers- no

farm worker – no food because they need them; but no path to citizenship. 

“What hypocrisy,” Lubow wrote. “I  am really not interested in what your politics are or who you voted for. These men, women and their families are our neighbors,” Lubow wrote

“People who make our community function, now feel unsafe. We are supposed to be better than this,” Lubow wrote. "At least that is what

the Lady in the Harbor proclaims.”

Ellen Schorsch with the Mountaintop Progressives helped organize the Tannersville event as part of a national anti-ICE day.

“The timing was appropriate given what has happened on the mountaintop,” Schorsch said in a followup interview.

“Both people taken [in Tannersville and WIndham] are incredible neighbors. We are making ourselves available to helping families affected by this,” Schorsch said, noting fundraising and lobbying efforts are in motion.

The mission of ICE officers, according to the Department of Homeland Security website, is to, “protect America through criminal investigations and enforcing immigration laws to preserve national security and public safety.”

While immigration enforcement, “requires significant ICE assets near the border, the majority of immigration enforcement work for ICE takes place in the country’s interior,” the website states.