Islip Town Board urged again to end deal letting ICE agents use shooting range

Speaker after speaker urged the Islip Town Board on Tuesday night to end a contract allowing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to use the town’s shooting range.

The scene was reminiscent of a board meeting last summer when opponents of ICE agents' use of the range urged the board to end the practice.

The contract in question allows more than two dozen agencies, spanning ICE to the U.S. Secret Service to Amtrak, the use of the town-owned Freeman Avenue shooting range for training. The contract has been in place for at least two decades but is up for town renewal this year.

ICE presence's first came under fire last July when activists began calling for Islip Town to terminate the deal amid reports federal immigration agents had detained immigrants without criminal records. The opposition culminated in a protest  by more than 100 people at Town Hall that month.

Islip’s five-member Town Board ultimately declined to vote on ending the deal at its August meeting, prompting attendees to erupt with disapproval and one attendee to be hauled out of the meeting by police.

On Tuesday, more than a dozen speakers showed up at the board meeting to once again voice their opposition and ask officials to let the contract expire in June.

The speakers’ arguments largely echoed those made last year. They contend ICE is terrorizing residents, engaging in racial profiling and harassment, and that Islip should not assist the agency by allowing it access to the gun range.

"There is clearly no public safety argument to be had here. There is no fiscal argument to be had," Kenneth Colon told the board. "If you do absolutely nothing, the contract will die on June 30. I am asking you to let it die and let it stay dead."

The town board’s lone opponent of renewing the contract, Democrat Jorge Guadrón, said before the meeting "it will be basically impossible to cancel the contract" on the Republican-dominated board.

"I don’t think I have the support from the other council members," he said.

Guadrón proposed terminating the contract multiple times last year. His proposals failed because none of his Republican or Conservative Party colleagues would second the motion.

Supervisor Angie Carpenter and Councilman Michael McElwee, both Republicans, did not respond to Newsday’s requests for comment Tuesday. Conservative Councilman John Lorenzo declined to comment.

Guadrón said his plan is to place some conditions on the contract renewal in June rather than push for a full termination. The details of that conditioning, ranging from what it would entail to how it would be enforced, remained unclear.

"We can condition the use of the rifle range provided that ICE agents show an improvement on the treatment of residents in the Town of Islip when they come into contact with them," he said, specifically mentioning ICE agents’ questioning of residents’ immigration status.

Guadrón said he plans to meet with town attorneys to craft something workable by June.

"The first thing we have to do is agree on conditioning the contract," he said. "That will depend on the other council members."

By Sam Kmack

sam.kmack@newsday.com

Sam Kmack covers the Town of Islip for Newsday. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California and previously worked as a city watchdog reporter in the Phoenix metro area, as well as an investigative journalist at the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting.