06/25/2026
Months of direct work with Supervisor Huerta by activists and concerned constituents paid off on Monday night, when a resolution requiring an operating permit for the detention facility in the Town of Salina passed. This vote is official, and this win is a victory for everyone working to hold ICE accountable for the conditions reported inside their 100 Northern Concourse facility.
But no one at the town board meeting that night could have anticipated Supervisor Huerta’s agonized and evasive response to the passage of the resolution. He had warned against it in his comments introducing it at the meeting, and when it won, he launched into an extended litany of what he claimed were disqualifying technicalities that rendered its passage “moot.” Huerta worked for months with activists and others on crafting the resolution, and never once in that time had he raised any of these intricate procedural concerns with them. Huerta even described the activists as having “forced him” to put the resolution on the agenda, but only wealthy interests would be capable of doing that. The only power the people have over their representatives is collective and democratic: the power of the truth.
Everywhere throughout the supervisor’s agitated commentary he describes the resolution inaccurately as a “local law,” which the resolution most certainly is not. All of the procedural requirements Huerta claims the resolution failed to meet only apply to laws, not to resolutions. These supposedly omitted requirements include a public comment period and consultation with state and county authorities. Neither of these things are required of town board resolutions. Never had the supervisor surfaced the $4 million price tag in any of the conversations he had held pertaining to the resolution with the activists involved, and he never explained how it was calculated or what it was for.
The struggle ahead will require as many of us as possible to see this resolution through to implementation. Salina town residents have the most power with the town board, and they should come to the next town board meeting on July 6 at 6:30 pm at 201 School Rd., Liverpool, NY.
