‘A TARGET ON OUR BACKS’
Threat vs. federal agent gets personal in Newburyport
Attacks on ICE are getting personal, with a Newburyport shop owner and her husband the latest victims of blowback from “radical haters” blaming federal employees for the crisis at the southern border.
The rattled shop owner said she found a sign hanging over a bridge next to her business Saturday morning that called her and her husband out for being “a danger to our community.” He works for the Department of Homeland Security, and she’s an immigrant from Ireland.
The sign was put up a day before Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids loomed across the country and followed attacks on ICE facilities, including one in Washington state where police shot and killed a man armed with a rifle who tried to set a migrant center on fire.
ICE said the Newburyport threat and others like it are putting people in danger — not only the “enforcement personnel” but “potentially innocent bystanders” and possibly immigrants.
“I’m afraid some person may be not all with it, and might take it further,” the shop owner told the Herald Tuesday about the threat. “It has put a target on our backs for radical haters.”
The sign, she added, was also wrong. Her husband works for Homeland Security, but is not an ICE agent. The Herald is withholding the couple’s identities because they have been targeted by a potential threat.
“I don’t get why they would target us,” the shop owner said. “Neither one of us are a threat to anybody, and we’ve had no qualms with anybody. Whoever it is should be ashamed of themselves.”
The woman said she’s nervous, adding she has no idea who made the sign.
The night before the sign was spotted, IndivisibleRISE Newburyport held a rally protesting the Trump administration’s mistreatment of migrants in detention camps. IndivisibleRISE “unequivocally condemns” the sign found on the bridge, the group said in a statement.
“We express our concern for, and full support of, our neighbors who were targeted by the sign,” the statement said.
“The sign had nothing to do with the rally,” added Robin Lawson, a member of the Indivisible-RISE leadership team. “We are not happy about this at all.”
The shop owner filed a report with police, who are investigating. The police and Newburyport Mayor Donna Holaday have been very supportive, she added.
The mayor said she was “appalled” by the sign, adding that these incidents do not happen in Newburyport.
“This isn’t what our community is about,” Holaday said.
The leader of the Greater Newburyport Chamber of Commerce, Frank Cousins, added that the shop owner is hardworking and the couple are “very nice people.”
“It’s unfortunate what happened to them,” he said. “This is not a reflection on Newburyport.”
U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, who represents Newburyport, said in a statement: “Intimidating law enforcement agents is wrong and should be investigated. ICE agents enforce the president’s policy, and the president’s policies of family separation, mass roundups and deportations is where people should focus their anger.”