DEAR EDITOR:

On Thursday, Feb. 12, I addressed the Mahoning County Commissioners about unlawful actions taken at the Mahoning County jail on Feb. 3, on behalf of ICE. At 8:30 a.m. that day, the Sheriff’s Office illegally released two men from Framingham, Massachusetts, from ICE custody into the single-digit temperatures without weather-appropriate clothing, without funds and without any contacts in the area, when the court order very specifically stated that the men were to be returned to Massachusetts where they have pending court cases.

They were put out into the freezing temperatures without money, no clue where to go or who to ask for help. Two-and-a-half hours after their release, I got a phone text from a law office in Maine asking if anyone in the area could help them. The law office got a message to them and told them to make their way to the bus station across the street from the jail. I tracked down some friends who went to the bus station and got them tickets to Boston. They took the men to a safe place to get warm, took in donations of clothing, toiletries, cash and other small items to aid their return to New England. Eighteen hours later they were home safe thanks to some very caring people in Youngstown.

The general response from the commissioners was that they would look into the details of the release, but they failed to ask how to contact me, my friends, the lawyer’s office or the courts involved. Neither the commissioners nor the press showed any interest in calling out the illegal actions taken by local law enforcement on behalf of federal agencies. When a local agency facilitates illegal actions they become complicit. Should it be determined that this was not an illegal action, at the very least it was inhumane and completely unnecessary. When commissioners were asked “what kind of people do that?” there was no real answer.

I ask again, what kind of people usher people out the door into the cold and wind of Ohio in February without proper outerwear, without resources, without friends or family in the area, closing the door on them? Is this who we have become? Is this who we want to be?

JANET COBB

Salem