Father Duberney Villamizar was preparing to celebrate 8 a.m. Mass at St. Margaret’s Roman Catholic Church on Tuesday when the alerts started coming: ICE on MLK.
His phone vibrated in his pocket throughout the brief service until Communion, when he glanced through the church’s glass doors and saw a man sprinting down Speedwell Avenue from the Lincoln Apartments toward the firehouse, chased by an ICE agent.
Cutting Mass short, Father Duberney stepped outside still in his vestments and found an ICE SUV had stopped in a no‑parking lane near the Morristown Jewish Center, flung its door open into traffic and been struck by what he described as a blue Volkswagen SUV.
Video: Kids on school bus watch ICE arrests along Speedwell Avenue:
A school bus full of elementary students screamed as ICE agents transferred handcuffed people between vehicles, he said, and the ICE convoy sped off toward Morris Plains after a large Sheriff’s vehicle arrived.
The priest believes four to six individuals, including a car wash employee, were detained in in this latest in a series of Morristown sweeps since January. One detainee was released after producing legal documents, he said.
“Before, it was you are innocent until they prove you are guilty. But now is the opposite,” Father Duberney said.
Video: Traffic catches glimpse of ICE arrest in Morristown:
He minced no words in noting the immediate and cumulative effects of President Trump’s crackdown on his largely Latino flock. Immigrant parents are skipping badly needed paychecks to hole up at home with their children, who are missing classes at school, he said. Hispanic businesses are suffering.
“This is all about intimidation. You create chaos in order to intimidate people,” Father Duberney said.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), did not immediately provide detainee details requested by Morristown Green.
Nor did Morristown Police respond to questions seeking confirmation of the motor vehicle incident. And Morris County Sheriff James Gannon indicated he would need a little more time to determine whether anyone from his office had breached a state policy by collaborating with ICE — a topic of heated speculation on social media and at Tuesday’s town council meeting.
‘NOT ONLY FEAR BUT TERROR’
Councilman David Silva said ICE raids have created “not only fear but terror” in Morristown’s Latino community, including green card holders and U.S. citizens. Families are afraid to attend public events—including his church festival last weekend—and unsure whether arrests are random or targeted.
Silva, who is a Colombian immigrant and a minister, said he received “nasty” email after speaking out against ICE at the last meeting.
Choking back emotion, he argued that while federal authorities talk about deporting “hardcore criminals,” in practice enforcement is only cover to “take people and harm our community,” sowing chaos and fear with deep psychological consequences for children and adults.
Silva’s remarks came as audience members pressed town officials to investigate social media claims suggesting local authorities collaborated with ICE. Such activity would violate New Jersey’s Immigrant Trust Directive, a state policy endorsed by Morristown officials and meant to foster immigrants’ trust in police.
“Be someone they can turn to, please,” said East Hanover resident Anthony Lee, who identified himself as a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
Morris Township resident Aaron Stern, also from the DSA, referred to photos and videos circulating online Tuesday that seemed to show a Morris County Sheriff’s Officer collaborating with a masked ICE agent. He asked if the town had any details; Administrator Jillian Barrick responded that local officials get “very little information” about ICE raids.
“We’re relying a lot on the same information that everybody else has,” Barrick said, adding that Morristown’s ability to glean information from the county sheriff — a separate, constitutional office — “is going to be very limited.”
Morristown Green reached out to Sheriff Gannon, who said he would look into the matter. As a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor last fall, he vowed to “take the handcuffs off our police” and restore cooperation with ICE.
Mayor Tim Dougherty, a Democrat, said the coming congressional midterm election offers the best hope for curbing ICE.
“If people have to be deported, it should be done with dignity, respect, and kindness — not the way they just swoop in and put people in detention centers,” the five-term mayor said. “The only way you’re going to stop that is by voting in November, and voting in droves.”
Facebook video shows flurry of ICE activity in Morristown, Sept. 22, 2026:
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Jeffrey he alway right. How Trump suppose know? Back then we say don’t ask don’t tell.
Fake news you see it? Trump the best for transparency no corruption ok.
Fox News published articles covering allegations from former employees and reports by The New York Times and The Washington Post that undocumented housekeepers and maintenance workers were employed at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
Some way Fox News hosts—such as Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday—pressed Trump administration officials regarding the reports and potential hypocrisy surrounding the business’s labor practices.
Fox News also covered past instances, such as the use of undocumented demolition workers during the 1980s construction of Trump Tower, which Trump addressed during network interviews.
Trump no corruption just fake news all the time.
Denise, you’re part of the problem.
Rolling out the red carpet for people whose first act in coming to our country is to break out laws is flat-out wrongheaded in every way.
I know that open borders is a liberal thing – make ’em all voters, right? Hey it’s okay that they are here illegally, but let’s reward them with housing, food, citizenship, etc. M’kay? The immigrants who did it the right way are suckers.
What other laws are you okay with ignoring?
Thankfully there are a lot of us who are fighting back and are supporting ICE.
Go ICE!!!
There has to be a way to get to some level of reason and sanity in this situation. Just had a crazy thought that maybe our mayor, our Sherriff and whoever is in charge of ICE here in town, could sit down together and figure out a logical, humane way for officials to do their jobs without hurting people and with some level of compassion. Maybe some compromises, maybe some understanding of what is really happening?
Why should ICE be allowed to grab perfectly innocent individuals because they happen to be standing next to the person who has never committed a crime? No matter, that the innocent person has paid taxes for many years, has a reputable business with a business ID number, has never hurt a fly or committed any crime? Why does ICE have to grab the innocent because he happens to be standing next to the guilty? There is no discernment on the part of ICE. I understand that if your work visa has expired by one day,one year, then ICE can take you, throw you in detention center in Newark, then ship you off of La. while you have to wait(suffer) two months for a court date. There has to be a better way!
And we could maybe start by demanding that our Congress come up with a way to make our path to citizenship streamlined and efficient so that so called “Illegals” can be legal.
Dave, thanks for the reminder of the jobs that illegals are taking from Americans. Bonus: They are unlicensed and uninsured, so they work cheap!
And let’s not forget the illegals who do their best to make sure that hospital ER waiting rooms are full.
Illegals killing Americans? No problem!
Housing? Illegals are taking up the slack because we have too much empty housing sitting around.
Thanks again!
Jeff says “For every illegal they catch there are at least dozens more out there.”
Yes –
dozens more out there cooking/delivering our food
dozens more out there cleaning our houses
dozens more out there caring for our children and elders
dozens more out there mowing our lawns
dozens more out there maintaining our homes
Thank goodness ICE is here to keep these criminals from taking advantage of us
Good to see that ICE is doing its job. But why is this a news story?
For every illegal they catch there are at least dozens more out there.
What stays with me most from this article is the image of children on a school bus watching people being handcuffed and transferred between ICE vehicles on a street in their own town.
We often talk about the families directly affected by these arrests—and we should. But we also need to think about what repeated scenes like this do to all of our children.
Children notice what happens in the places where they live. They notice when neighbors disappear, when parents are afraid to go to work, when families stop going to community events, and when streets they know become places where they witness arrests. These experiences shape their understanding of safety, belonging and trust.
A community should teach children that their neighbors matter, that government operates within the law, and that the places where they live are safe places to belong.
This isn’t only about the people who are detained. It is about the community that all of our children are watching us create. And we should be asking ourselves what these children will remember about Morristown—and what they will learn about what it means to be a neighbor.