Jewish Group Protests ICE at Geauga Safety Center
“I was 16 months old when the Nazis invaded Poland,” Roman Frayman told a crowd of over 150 people gathered outside the Geauga County Safety Center July 23.
“I was 16 months old when the Nazis invaded Poland,” Roman Frayman told a crowd of over 150 people gathered outside the Geauga County Safety Center July 23.
“I saw boxcars being loaded with Jews,” Frayman continued. “I saw elderly people shot. And that’s all before I was 5.”
Frayman came to Geauga County as part of a Never Again Action, a “mass mobilization calling for Jews to shut down (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement),” according to its national website.
He said his childhood trauma has affected his life and the lives of his children. Even as young as he was during the Nazi takeover of his homeland, Frayman said that level of trauma is impossible to forget.
Sydney Eisenberg and Lexi Stovsky organized the protest, and said while the country’s immigration crisis is not new, or limited to the southern border, the situation at border detention camps is alarming and they wanted to get involved.
“Children are being separated from their families at the border and imprisoned in concentration camps,” their statement on the protest’s Facebook event page said. “ICE raids are increasing in frequency and severity, instilling fear and terror into immigrant communities. People are literally dying at the border as they flee for their safety. Our government refuses to recognize immigrants’ humanity, but the American people can take a stand.”
In her comments at the protest, Eisenberg told the crowd ICE is denying detainees toothpaste, soap, proper food, medical attention, and the safety, community and dignity that all people need.
In recent weeks, NAA groups have shut down ICE facilities in different cities along the east coast, with protesters arrested in New Jersey, Boston and Washington, D.C.
“I saw politicians tweeting about groups of Jews demonstrating and shutting down ICE detention centers in cities on the east coast,” Eisenberg said in an email after the event. “Personally, the reason I became interested in human rights issues, particularly those relating to immigrants and refugees, was my Jewish identity and education about the Holocaust.”
Dr. Arthur Lavin, a Beachwood pediatrician, told the crowd the American Medical Association and American Academy of Pediatrics have both spoken out against the government’s policy of separating children from their families at the border.
“Know that the nation’s pediatricians through the AAP have established that what we are doing to children by ripping them from their parents causes a chronic form of trauma called toxic stress,” Lavin said. “Toxic stress is proven to cause grievous harm across a lifetime. The trauma is happening now, the harms may last a lifetime.”
Lavin said the administration of President Donald Trump has imposed immigration rules that create a net in which families are caught. The targeting of those belonging to a particular group, he said, is familiar to members of the Jewish community.
“Once not too long ago when this happened, it led to mass slaughter, and we declared at the first sign of going down that path once more, we would stand up and say, never again,” he said.
Reached by phone after the event, Geauga County Sheriff Scott Hildenbrand said while his office houses immigrants detained by ICE, decisions about their detention is made at the federal level.
He added the facility does not hold children, and unlike crowded facilities near the border, each prisoner at the jail has access to personal hygiene products.
Medical care is also available to Geauga inmates, as well as translation services and videoconferencing so they can access legal representation and court hearings, he added.
Last September, WKYC reported the county received almost $4.5 million from the federal government between 2014 and 2018 in return for housing ICE detainees, which usually make up about one-third to one-half of inmates at the safety center.
Eisenberg said when she and Stovsky posted the event to Facebook, the location was not set, but after learning ICE detainees were being held in Geauga, the group decided to hold the protest at the facility.
“We chose to hold the action there to bring awareness to the fact that these atrocities are not only occurring on the southern border, but people are also being detained in jails that are extremely close to home,” Eisenberg said.
Sheriff’s deputies directed protesters to parking in the empty lot of the Geauga County Job and Family Services building, and cordoned off a designated safe area at the south end of the safety center parking lot for the protest. For Hildenbrand, the decision to create a designated protest area was made after speaking with Morrow County Sheriff John Hinton.
“He had a similar protest because they house ICE inmates also,” Hildenbrand said. “They never designated an area and the protest was not nearly as peaceful.”
Hildenbrand said he was made aware of the protest through tips from the public, as well as information provided by the Northeast Ohio Regional Fusion Center, which says its mission is to share information in order to anticipate and counter criminal activity, terrorism and other hazards in coordination with the Ohio Fusion Center Network and the Intelligence Community.
“I’m happy that there was a peaceful demonstration. We’re happy to give them the stage and it wasn’t disruptive to us and it went very well,” Hildenbrand said.
