07/18/2025
Statement from the West Norriton Board of Commissioners regarding the ICE raid in our township on Wednesday, July 16:
We fully and emphatically condemn actions taken in our community on Wednesday in which 14 people were detained in a military style invasion. These types of events here, and anywhere else in our country, terrorize communities and make the most vulnerable among us feel unsafe.
The United States Constitution guarantees all within our borders inalienable rights, among these “the right of the people” to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures, as written in the Fourth Amendment, as well as the Fifth Amendment right that declares “No person shall…. be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The founders very carefully protected people without exception for citizenship or any other reason.
Masked, unidentified, and militarized individuals roaming this country and seizing people without warrants or probable cause, and in many cases denying them the due process of law, should be alarming to all of us, no matter what beliefs we hold.
When any person’s rights are callously disregarded, these rights are no longer valid for ANY of us.
We fully support the American Dream and those who aspire to its ideals. This makes all our communities stronger and better. Almost all of us have ancestors who are immigrants. So many of our ancestors arrived here because of unimaginably horrible conditions elsewhere. Now is the time to show empathy and compassion.
