Mayor says Hoboken working to soothe residents spooked by ICE

Hoboken Mayor Emily Jabbour says community leaders are working to restore a sense of safety after a string of Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions in Hudson County.

Some students don’t want to walk to school alone and some seniors hesitate to attend community events, Jabbour told NJ Spotlight News. ICE agents’ confronting individuals in Jersey City and Hoboken on Sunday — recorded by witnesses and widely seen on social media — intensified their unease, she said.

Hoboken, a mile-square city linked to Manhattan by subway, has a population of roughly 60,000 people, about 19% of them foreign-born.

“I do not feel this makes our community safe — quite the opposite,” Jabbour said of the federal agents’ presence. “The level of anxiety and fear that now is in our community as a result of these actions is deeply upsetting for me.”

Ten people who were illegally in the U.S. were detained in neighboring Jersey City in a “targeted immigration enforcement operation,” Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, told NJ Spotlight News.

“Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, if you break the law, you will face the consequences,” McLaughlin said. “Criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S.”

No outstanding warrants

It’s not known whether any of the people arrested Sunday had a criminal history beyond illegally entering the country. At least three worked in Hoboken, Jabbour said.

“None of these people had criminal outstanding warrants,” Jabbour said.

Jabbour was joined by Assemblyman Ravi Bhalla (D-Hudson) and Assemblywoman Katie Brennan (D-Hudson) on Sunday night for an emergency meeting, to educate people of their rights in encounters with ICE. More than 200 attended in person, and at least 100 others watched online, Jabbour said.

“People felt the need to really be in community, number one, and to have the support of their neighbors,” Jabbour said.

Gov. Mikie Sherrill last week encouraged New Jerseyans to record ICE agents and promised to establish a portal to gather their videos. Jabbour said Jersey City Councilman Jake Ephros set an example of how to observe ICE activity with his phone recording of Sunday’s enforcement action.

“Information can be power,” Jabbour said. “We don’t know what’s happening, necessarily, unless people have the opportunity to take that video footage.”