The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
Two township school children were left abandoned in their car last week after their father was detained by federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a local organizer said on March 8.
The father was driving the children to their schools when he was pulled over by ICE agents, Michael Steinbrück told a crowd of about 50 people who gathered at the Township Veterans’ Memorial Park on DeMott Lane for a peace vigil.
The man, who was not identified, was “targeted and pulled over by ICE and taken, abducted, taken into custody and subsequently brought to Delaney Hall,” said Steinbrück, who was an organizer of the vigil. Delaney Hall is an immigrant detention center in Newark.
The children “were left to their own devices to contact their mother at work and come and retrieve them,” he said.
The man, who Steinbrück said has lived in this country “for decades,” has indicated that he will not oppose his deportation, Steinbrück said.
“The father, who is not the biological father of the two children, but has been decades here, and has been there as the father of those children,” he said.
He said that a Highland Park-based organization, Deportation & Immigration Response Equipo, is helping the family.
The peace vigil was called by Steinbrück to bring attention to that incident, but to also allow people to come together to share their feelings about the bombing of an Iranian school building, in which 150 students, mostly girls, were reported killed.
Steinbrück and several others made a symbolic walk from Franklin Middle School – Sampson G. Smith campus, across DeMott Lane to the Veterans’ Memorial.
Starting at the school was inspired by the Iranian students killed and the two Franklin students reportedly abandoned by ICE, Steinbrück said.
“Now we are feeling the sting of what happens when ICE is in your town,” Steinbrück told the crowd.
Mayor Phil Kramer, who, along with other elected township officials appearing at the vigil, said he was not representing the Township, said he had received some criticism for holding the first peace vigil near the Veterans’ Memorial, but, he said, “I think it’s exactly the right place to do it, because we’re here for peace.”
“As I pointed out before, no one suffers more from war than a veteran soldier,” he said. “Sometimes war is necessary, and these people stood up, and they’re heroes for that, and the six that we just lost are heroes as well.”
“Peace is always the better way, sometimes war is necessary, but we always hope for peace,” he said, before leading the group in a moment of silence for the six United States service member reported killed in the early stages of the US/Israeli war against Iran, and for those lost in all of the U.S. wars.
Somerset County Commission Director Shanel Robinson said that peace “is not an absence of conflict, it is the presence of justice.”
“And so we stand united today, praying for world peace, praying for peace in our community, and today, we don’t just wish for peace, we commit to it, we build it together, and that’s the only way,” she said.
Deputy Mayor Alex Kharazi, a native of Iran, said that “seeing that how this country is being basically devastated, and thousands of people have been killed, and seeing not only in Iran, in other countries that people are being killed, innocent people from children to adults, it is very tragic.”
“For the last 38 years that I’ve lived here, I’ve always promoted the peace, because I believe that as humans, we have been born not to kill each other, but love each other,” he said. “And I still believe that that is the principle that we should always follow.”
“It’s extremely tragic, it could have been prevented,” he said. “There was a way, especially a tragic coming from our president, who called himself President of Peace. That hurts a lot, and we hope that he hears this message, that hopefully he will stop this war, and I know he can do it.”
Pastor George Montanari of Middlebush Reformed Church, said that he has been “grieved by the ways in which things that happen all around the world have an impact right here in Franklin.”
“I heard Dr. Kharazi speak of his background from Iran, and this war, certainly,” Montanari said. “All of the conflict in the Middle East, Ukraine and Russia, our neighbors, the Ukrainian Orthodox community, they are hurting too. There are so many places around the world where, because of Franklin’s wonderful diversity, we feel the hurt of that right here.”
Speaking of “Let There Be Peace On Earth,” a song that is played regularly on the church’s carillon, Montanari said, “When we hear those words, Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me, it is a call to remember that we care locally for one another, as well as embracing the world globally to work for peace, too. When we do that, then we are working at that peace, then we’re working at the parts that we can take responsibility for, and make of this world a better place.”
“I’m grieved over the ways that our neighbors are hurting, and I pray for peace so that their hurt will one day come to an end,” he said.
The Rev. Sonya Redd, president of the Franklin Township Interfaith Council, said that “what’s going on around the nation and around our world, what’s happening right now in Iran, it’s really very painful.”
“It’s very painful, especially when you think about children being killed in school, when you think about people who are going about their daily business, and all of a sudden there’s bombs falling on them,” she said.
“My prayer is that we will, the people of God, irrespective of what faith you might serve God under, it does not matter, that we will come together, pray together, serve together, work together to make this world a place of peace, where we will look at one another and see one another’s humanity,” she said.
“It does not matter where you come from,” she said. “It does not matter the color of your skin, but all of us are God’s creation. We are his precious creation, and we should love that which God loves, and God loves all of us.”
“Love is an action word,” Redd said. “It is not something that we just talk about. It’s something that we demonstrate.”
Councilman Ram Anbarasan said that the fact that people had gathered for the vigil “tells me that you all love peace. Peace knows no bounds, whether you are white, black, brown, Christian, Jew, Hindu, doesn’t matter. We all love peace, and I’m from India.”
“I’m a Hindu, but my prayers are with anybody who’s suffering because of the violence,” he said. “Our leader of the nation, father of the nation, Gandhi, preached us, taught us, you can achieve peace by non-violence. What we are doing now is not non-violence.”
Steinbrück told the crowd that a contingent of township residents will attend the March 28 No Kings rally in New Brunswick. The Franklin organizing group, he said, has dubbed itself “March Forward.”
“And so what we’re trying to do in Franklin is come together in a way that Ram described, which is to ignore borders, to meet with people from other places, to go to New Brunswick, where ICE has been active within another municipality,” he said. “Now we know, as I said, and we can surely anticipate, given the amount of resources and logistical planning on the part of ICE to infiltrate our communities and terrorize our neighborhoods, that it will be coming here more and more and that the need for support for our residents will only increase. So we plan for the worst, but part of that is coming together.”
Here is a video of the vigil:
Here are some scenes from the afternoon:
