Norristown rally decries impact of ICE operations on community

About 75 people gathered at the intersection of Tremont Avenue and East Fornance Street in Norristown on Wednesday night, where they say federal immigration enforcement agents forcibly detained three people last Friday in front of children waiting for a school bus.

People lined both sides of the roadway, hoisting signs and waving to cars that honked as they passed by. Speakers decried U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in the area, which they said has led to 500 people being detained in Montgomery County between January 2025 and July 2026.

Montco Community Watch, a local rapid response group that monitors ICE activities in the area, collected reports from bystanders and said the three people detained were related.

“All three family members tried to run because of fear for their life, their livelihood and the extreme impact on their family,” said Stephanie Vincent, a leader with Montco Community Watch and Community for Change Montgomery County. “All this happened while vulnerable children and their families, many immigrants themselves, were at this bus stop.”

The Philadelphia ICE Field Office and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment about the allegations.

Speakers said the incident is just one example of the impact ICE activities are having on families and businesses in Norristown, where immigrants make up nearly 18% of the population. 

“When enforcement happens in places where families live their everyday lives, at bus stops, on streets, near schools or in neighborhoods, the effects can reach beyond the person who is detained,” said Jorge Liborio, 16, a junior at Norristown Area High School. “It can affect children, parents, coworkers, friends and entire communities.”

On his first day in office in 2025, President Donald Trump rescinded a longstanding policy that restricted federal immigration enforcement agents from staging operations at schools, churches, hospitals and other “sensitive locations.”

Since then, “children are walking onto buses and into the classrooms, terrified,” said Jay Lee, the advocacy and civic engagement manager at the Woori Center in Lansdale.

“Dropouts are rising, attendance is falling, trauma is spreading through our classrooms and bleeding into our streets, and this cannot stand,” he said.

High school students involved with the Woori Center, which provides resources and programming for the Korean American community and beyond, are pressing the county’s 22 school districts to establish policies and procedures protecting immigrant students, Lee said.

Demands include staff training on how to interact with ICE, policies on refusing to share data with federal immigration enforcement agents absent a judicial warrant and protections for student privacy.

Speakers also called on Gov. Josh Shapiro and local elected officials, including the Norristown Municipal Council and Upper Merion Township Board of Supervisors, to pass legislation restricting cooperation with ICE.

“Right now, local police are sharing data and video footage with ICE in order to assist them in their actions,” said Erika Jones, who is advocating for legislation in Upper Merion. “You may think that your current local police and your current local government would never allow that to happen. A welcoming policy would make this illegal unless there is a signed judicial warrant.”

Montgomery County passed legislation earlier this year restricting ICE activities on county property, among other protections for immigrant residents.