Dozens of grandmothers in a deep-red area of Ohio have been protesting their county’s agreement to help President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign.
The group of Butler County residents has been showing up to county commission meetings for weeks to speak out against an agreement reached by conservative Sheriff Richard Jones with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain people facing deportation in the county jail, reported The Cincinnati Enquirer.
“I’m here because I’m outraged. I’m here because I’m angry,” said Hamilton resident Cassie Stevens at the Nov. 18 meeting. “I’m here because I need to be able to look my grandkids in the eye and say I did not remain silent.”
Commissioners authorized the agreement because they said it would bring millions of dollars from the federal government to the county, but more than 70 residents – most of them white women with close-cropped gray hair – attended the most recent meeting in protest and then demonstrated outside.
“If you don’t look like us, bring a passport to Butler County,” said Hamilton resident Sharon Meyer.
Speakers at the commission meeting discussed fears about ICE arrests permeating their community, and the demonstrators defied one of the commissioners and sang “America the Beautiful” before the public comment portion ended.
“They use the dehumanizing term ‘illegals’ just like they use the n-word,” said Stevens, who disavowed the sheriff’s agreement as a “dirty money contract” and said it has “emboldened racists.”
Hamilton resident Melanie Stearns said the county’s cooperation with ICE gave the area a bad reputation, which she said was already hurting with Butler County native JD Vance’s election as Donald Trump’s vice president.
“We look like idiots, just like we did with the cats and JD Vance,” Stearns said, referring to the Middletown native’s claims about Haitian migrants and pets about an hour north in Springfield.
Butler County for Immigrant Justice members range in age from 60 to 85, said group member Anne Jantzen, who lives in Seven Mile and said older members have more time to attend the meetings held weekly on Tuesday mornings.
“I can do it,” Jantzen said, “therefore I need to.”
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