Great Barrington Police Chief Bill Walsh said his department "played a minimal role in this operation"; that he reported it to his boss, Town Manager Jennifer Tabakin, the next day; and that he responded to media inquiries on the incident.
In her letter to the editor, Joanne Rogovin writes: "An estimated 500 men, women and children filled the hill next to the GB shrubbery, protesting the separation and detention of children and families at the Mexican border."
"It was unfathomable to me that this president could do something so cruel, so un-American and, quite honestly, something that's just bad policy."
-- Brooke Mead, director of the Berkshire Immigrant Center
"Living in fear is the not the quality of a welcoming and safe community — it is instead the very essence of a totalitarian state. A community in which any of our members live in fear is not the kind of community that any of us, regardless of political affiliation, I am sure, want Great Barrington to be."
-- Housatonic resident Anne O’Dwyer
The town's proposed policy says the Police Department will treat undocumented citizens like everyone else and will not be an arm of ICE (the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency).
