Riverhead residents urge town action on ICE response rules

At Riverhead Town Hall, residents pressed officials to say when Riverhead police and town staff would cooperate with ICE during an operation and what would change under a proposed local law drafted by retired Assembly Member Fred Thiele.

The proposal, backed by the Organización Latino Americana of Eastern Long Island, is being framed by supporters as a public-safety and transparency measure, not a bid to block federal immigration enforcement. OLA says the draft acknowledges federal immigration authority while asserting local police power over public health and safety, and is meant to give towns a clearer playbook for communication, emergency response and accountability when federal agents are active in the community.

Riverhead residents have been asking for that clarity since OLA first publicly urged the town to adopt the model law on Feb. 19. By March, the group had produced a third draft after input from East End municipal officials and attorneys. That version removed references to impersonation of law-enforcement officers, local automatic license plate readers and the federal 287(g) program, showing how the measure has already been narrowed in response to local feedback.

Even so, Riverhead officials had not held a substantive public discussion of the proposal by mid-March, and the town board offered no meaningful response again on April 24. The silence was striking in a room where residents returned to the same basic question: what, exactly, would Riverhead do if ICE showed up in town?

The concern has grown alongside reported immigration raids on the East End in 2026, including in Riverhead and Riverside. Residents and advocates said the uncertainty is already rippling beyond the moment of enforcement, with some families wary of schools, churches, youth programs and downtown businesses. In a town of 35,902 people, with 19.5% of residents identifying as Hispanic or Latino and 16.2% foreign-born, that fear carries direct consequences for whether people trust local institutions enough to use them.

OLA said it met with every other East End town and village leadership team, along with their lawyers, but Riverhead did not attend a Feb. 26 Zoom meeting on the proposal. The town’s reluctance to engage has become part of the debate itself, especially as Gov. Kathy Hochul has moved in a similar direction with a Jan. 30 proposal to bar local law enforcement from being deputized by ICE for federal civil immigration enforcement.

For now, Riverhead residents are still waiting for officials to explain what problem the town is trying to solve, and whether the current absence of rules is itself the risk.