State Sen. Art Haywood, D-4th Dist. makes remarks at a Feb. 10, 2026 press conference in Trooper across from a residential neighborhood where an immigration enforcement operation took place. (Rachel Ravina – MediaNews Group)
State Sen. Art Haywood says 'this kind of brutality is completely unacceptable.'
Elected officials gathered Tuesday in a restaurant parking lot across the street from where a raid took place a day earlier to condemn the actions of federal immigration agents. The road leading to the residential neighborhood off Ridge Pike was desolate during the Tuesday morning press conference in contrast to the chaotic scene there Monday morning.
“It’s the street right behind us here. I witnessed more than 20 unmarked vehicles, some with Uber stickers on them, and ICE agents who were masked, some individuals wearing ATF vests, and just a heavy federal presence as community members gathered, afraid and watching,” said Lower Providence Township Supervisor Dr. Janine Darby.
Darby was among the dozens who were on the other side of caution tape Monday observing masked federal agents who eventually detained a man after an hourslong standoff. Darby said one of the family members involved was “unfortunately punched by one of the ICE agents” and required medical attention.
“I don’t think her jaw was broken, but it could have been, and that’s where we got the ambulance involved [and] took care of her on the scene,” Darby said.
Darby also spoke with the family and went inside their North Barry Avenue home and she described a “devastating” scene where she saw “children crying, a family in shock, and a home destroyed after agents broke down the door.”
“No child should feel that kind of fear in their own home, because it was freezing,” Darby said. “These actions tear families apart, terrorize children and traumatize communities.”
“No one deserves to have their door broken down in the fashion that it was,” said state Sen. Art Haywood, D-4th Dist.
Lower Providence Township police officers were also on scene Monday, but Darby clarified they were “there only for public safety” and “were not involved in the raid.”
“Yesterday, they occupied a neighborhood,” said state Rep. Greg Scott, D-54th Dist. “They shut this neighborhood down, and not with local police.”
“What wasn’t said yesterday was there was a school bus that could not pick up kids and take them … to school because they want to occupy a portion of our community and shut down the street,” Scott said.
Scott commended the 50-or-so community activists who were gathered at the scene Monday to “protect, to document and to record” what took place. Scott encouraged people to continue such actions.
“Let’s also be very clear that what happened in Montgomery County yesterday—what happened right across that street—that’s not the first time that members of our community have been terrorized,” Scott said.
ICE uptick
Advocates have witnessed an uptick in the presence of federal agents locally as part of a federal immigration crackdown that’s become a cornerstone of President Donald Trump’s second term in office.
“ICE raids in our community do not make us any safer. Actually, [it] makes us less safe,” said state Sen. Katie Muth, D-44th Dist. “It makes the community less trusting in law enforcement in general, and the fear that is instilled in our communities because the presence of ICE has caused this unnerving effect.”
“ICE agents, if you can hear me, do not follow these cruel orders that violate the basic dignity that we all recognize,” Haywood said.
Montco Community Watch, a grassroots organization focused on documenting immigration enforcement activities, lists at least 114 detainments in Montgomery County since June 2025. Fourteen undocumented individuals were detained in July 2025 at a West Norriton Township grocery store in one of the area’s more visible raids.
“This happens every day in our communities. You can’t go to a food pantry in my district in Norristown without having the threat of being abducted for getting food for the least vulnerable,” Scott said, blasting the Trump Administration’s policies on immigration and food assistance.
“So they want to cut your SNAP benefits to give more money for ICE and then they want to pick you up when you want to get food for the money they didn’t cut,” Scott said. “So you want to talk about dignity … this ain’t about law and order. It’s about chaos.”
“It is unacceptable,” Haywood said. “It is below the standard of human decency, and this is why we are here to make that as clear as possible for all of our neighbors, for the entire community, as well as for the nation.”
Protests ramp up
Protests have ramped up in the wake of the fatal shooting of a 37-year-old Minnesota woman by a U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement in Minneapolis last month. Tensions have continued escalating in the Midwestern city as protestors clashed with federal agents for much of the past month.
“It was outrageous and unacceptable, and it’s something that we never want to see here in Montgomery County or elsewhere in the country,” said Montgomery County Commissioners’ Vice Chairman Neil Makhija.
“This may not have the same level and intensity as what we have seen in Minnesota,” Muth said. It is happening in smaller, less obvious ways.”
“This is one by one, and these people are humans,” she continued. They have families. They have people that love them, they have jobs, they have lives here, and they’re no different than you and I.”
Muth and Makhija decried the Trump Administration and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s plans to transform warehouses into detention centers. The federal agency spent $87.4 million on a 527,000-square-foot warehouse in Upper Bern Township, Berks County.
“A warehouse is a place where you store objects, not human beings,” Makhija said. “We have to work to make sure that there is never a facility like that in Montgomery County, because we know what happens.”
“We’ve heard about the detention centers across the commonwealth,” he continued. “How individuals are treated, how there are deaths occurring in these facilities because of the negligence and lack of care to those who are being detained, some of whom may have legal status but have not seen their day in court in order to assert their rights.”
Montgomery County has an estimated population of 868,742 people, according to July 2024 Census figures, with additional statistics from datausa.io revealing that roughly 10.8 percent of county residents “were born outside of the country” as of 2022, with officials estimating the county’s immigrant population at more than 100,000 people. Haywood and other elected officials representing Montgomery County on Tuesday had a message for their constituents.
“And for all immigrants who are terrified, traumatized by what they see on television and in these neighborhoods, we stand with you,” Haywood said.
An ICE spokesperson did not respond to MediaNews Group’s request for comment as of Tuesday afternoon.
