About 50 protesters marched through downtown Hackettstown on Sunday, Oct. 25, following a second major immigration enforcement operation in the town this year.
The demonstration brought together immigrant advocates, local volunteers and community organizers who have expanded their efforts to monitor ICE activity since 14 people were arrested in August.
Marchers carried signs and flags, blew whistles and chanted in English and Spanish as they traveled along Main Street.
“What do we want?” a leader called through the bullhorn.
“Dignity and respect,” the crowd responded.
There was a much shorter refrain, too: “ICE out.”
The Oct. 25 march brought together local activists, volunteers and community members in response to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation the previous week that resulted in nine arrests, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
ICE Arrests 9 in Hackettstown in Second Large-Scale Operation of 2026
On Monday, Oct. 19, shortly after 7 a.m., four ICE vehicles parked near the corner of Main and Center streets outside Anderson Check Cashing. They were observed by Jodi Keggan of Blairstown, a volunteer rapid responder with the interfaith group Voices for Justice.
Later that day, photos and videos appeared on social media depicting a masked agent, a civilian observer recording video with a cellphone and at least three vehicles, one with emergency lights activated, parked around a landscaping truck on Mill Street near the intersection with Water Street. The caption read simply, “Be safe.”
In response to questions about the Oct. 19 arrests, a DHS spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement that “ICE arrested nine illegal aliens during a targeted enforcement operation.”
The DHS statement names five of the nine people arrested. That includes three people with criminal histories, according to DHS: Jorge Luis Velasquez Velasquez has a criminal history that includes two arrests for driving under the influence and careless driving. Lauro Secundino Tecalix has a criminal history that includes assault. Francisco Ortiz Hernandez also has a criminal history that includes assault.
DHS also named two people with final orders of removal. Armando Carrera-Balcarcel received a final order of removal in 2002 and was later arrested by Border Patrol in March 2024, then later released. David Joel Bonilla-Velasquez has a history that includes criminal trespass; he also received a final order of removal in February 2025.
The other four arrestees were not identified.
The presence of the landscaping truck in one video raised the possibility that those arrested were working at the time of arrest. Potentially in response to a question about the arrestees’ employment, the DHS’s statement continued: “To be clear: a pending application or work authorization does NOT confer legal status in the United States.” The agency has used identical language in statements following arrests over the past several months, including cases involving college athletes, medical researchers and congressional aides.
The October statement echoed DHS’s response to an earlier ICE enforcement operation in Hackettstown on Aug. 6.
In response to that operation, the DHS spokesperson had named 2 of 14 people arrested and alleged that both had criminal records. One had faced a 2001 cocaine-possession charge that led to deferred prosecution and entry into Miami-Dade County’s Drug Court Program in lieu of a conviction, according to Miami-Dade County criminal records.
The other had faced two charges in 2009, one for assault and one for criminal mischief. The court’s 2009 Transcript of Record does not establish the final outcome of the case, including whether the charges resulted in conviction or dismissal.
The remaining 12 people were not identified.
Hackettstown Officials Say They Received No Advance Notice
Similar to the Aug. 6 operation, local law enforcement and town officials say they had not received prior notice of the Oct. 19 enforcement action.
“Regarding the October 19 enforcement activity, the Town of Hackettstown was not provided advance notice by DHS,” Hackettstown Mayor Jerry DiMaio wrote in an email. “As I have stated previously, the town has sought greater communication and clarification from federal officials regarding these operations and their impact on our community.”
Hackettstown Chief of Police Aaron Perkins reported the same.
“There was no advance notice about the most recent enforcement, nor notice on the day of,” he wrote in an email. “We found out when the public advised our officers at an event.”
Some activists had planned to speak at the town council meeting originally scheduled for Oct. 22. The meeting was canceled due to a lack of business to conduct.
Over email, Mayor DiMaio stated that canceling the second meeting of a month is common for Hackettstown Town Council. He listed eight other such meetings canceled in 2026.
The Oct. 22 meeting was canceled on Friday, Oct. 16, before the ICE operation. DiMaio denied that the cancellation was related to the arrests, calling suggestions otherwise “frivolous accusations” made “without first conducting the necessary research.”
Local Groups Expand Rapid-Response Network After August Arrests
One thing has changed since the August operation: Activists and immigrant community members have become more organized.
“There’s a lot more of a rapid response,” said William Angus, co-founder of No ICE North Jersey Alliance, also known as Project NINJA. “Prior to August, [ICE activity] was theoretical. It was in the future… But once August hit, it’s like, okay, now it’s real, and now we know that we have to respond very quickly.”
Jodi Keggan of Blairstown was the first volunteer rapid responder to report ICE activity in Hackettstown on Oct. 19. Since March, she has volunteered in the rapid response group for Voices for Justice, an interfaith group run by Hackettstown’s local church community.
As a rapid responder, Keggan drives through Hackettstown with a whistle and a phone. Both are devices to alert local residents to possible ICE activity.
After seven months of volunteering, Oct. 19 was the first time she’d seen ICE agents firsthand in Hackettstown.
The response was much faster this time, Keggan said.
“Last time, the August thing, the people were taken at 7:15 [a.m.]. I didn’t show up till 7:45, right?” she said.
After the Aug. 6 operation, Voices for Justice reached out to Los Patrulleros, a Spanish-speaking community group that started in Dover and now has group chats in towns across New Jersey. Members use the group chats to share alerts about ICE activity.
At about 7:10 a.m. on Oct. 19, Keggan spotted ICE vehicles on Main Street outside Anderson Check Cashing. She took photos and sent them to an encrypted chat shared with Los Patrulleros.
By 7:35 a.m., members of Los Patrulleros ran a license plate visible in one photo through an archive of vehicles seen at previous ICE arrests and found a match. They added the date, time and location before circulating an alert throughout the group’s wider network.
Organizers claim that Hackettstown’s group chat alone has more than 900 members.
Coalition Brings Protest to Downtown Hackettstown
After the Oct. 19 ICE operation, organizers in Los Patrulleros planned the Oct. 25 protest in Hackettstown. They were soon joined by other activist and volunteer groups, including Project NINJA, Voices for Justice, Cosechas, and the Sussex Visibility Brigade.
In an initial rally at the corner of Willow Grove and Main Street, protesters held up signs and flags, including the American flag and the Colombian and Honduran flags in tandem. Prior to the march, leaders emphasized the peaceful nature of the protest and the importance of traffic safety.
Then the march began. Although the group wasn’t enormous at about 50 people, they used the rapid responders’ whistles to amplify their presence on Main Street.
Business owners and patrons stood in their doorways to watch, some waving supportively. People opened windows in second-story apartments to observe. Many drivers honked as they drove by. A group of middle school-age boys biked by, at first not knowing what the group was about. Near the end of the march, they stopped to applaud.
One man stood silently observing with his hands in his pockets. As the last of the marchers passed, he said, “God bless you.”
Other passersby were less supportive. Some yelled insults from their car windows or expressed pro-ICE sentiments from their doorways. Others stood outside and raised their middle fingers at the protesters.
Protesters Voice Concerns Over Proposed Roxbury Detention Center
The alliance of activists and community members described their efforts as protecting immigrant neighbors
“Let us trust in God, stay informed and remain attentive to the work we are doing together as a group,” one speaker said at the post-march rally. “Every person matters, every effort counts and every step we take together brings us closer to our goals.”
Others spoke to the importance of speaking out against the warehouse property in Roxbury. DHS’s plans to convert the space into a 1,500-person detention center have been paused for environmental review. But as reported by Gothamist, ICE acknowledged using the parking lot for initial processing on two occasions in September. The New Jersey attorney general’s office is still examining whether these two occasions represent a violation of a federal court order against using the site as a detention center.
For One Organizer, the Fight Against Ice Is Personal
The coalition brought together volunteers, activists and community members with a range of motivations.
Some, like Beth Hehn of Hackettstown, were white American citizens who felt a sense of moral obligation.
“I think that we should care about our neighbors, including the immigrants that are here, whether they’re legal or not,” Hehn said. “We should put more effort into helping them to immigrate than to deportation… We need to improve the immigration process.”
Community activists also pointed to the fear experienced by some Latino residents who have fully followed immigration law. They point to incidents of ICE arresting immigrants and keeping them in detention despite their having the correct paperwork and an absence of a criminal history; this was the case for Hoboken bartender Sebastian Pasco, who according to Patch was held in ICE custody for three months this year despite his possession of a Permanent Resident Card.
In response, Angus said, even U.S. citizens are carrying their passports on their person for fear of detainment.
For other organizers, the cause is personal.
This was true of one organizer from Los Patrulleros, who requested anonymity for personal safety. Her boyfriend was among the ICE arrests on Aug. 6 in Hackettstown. Although they sought legal help, he was ultimately deported to his native country of Honduras in early October.
His deportation devastated her. When a friend told her about Los Patrulleros, it seemed like too little, too late. But she soon had a change of heart. Although it wouldn’t bring her boyfriend back to the U.S., she said she wanted to help others.
It’s for him that the protest included the two flags waved in tandem: Colombia for her home country, Honduras for his. “I want to put it next to mine. It’s representative that he’s gonna be there marching with me,” she said. “Because of him, I came to the group, and because of him, I’m doing all this, like getting some justice for him.”
With more ICE activity likely in the future, she plans to help Los Patrulleros continue growing and networking with other activist and community groups.
“One of my friends asked me, ‘Are you gonna continue doing this? [Your boyfriend] is already in Honduras,’” she said. “I’m like, ‘I’m gonna do it ‘til the end. I don’t care.’ If I could help people to know what is going on and being alert, I will.”
Chip O'Chang is an educator, fiction writer, and lifelong resident of New Jersey. He has also written for My Life Publications and NJ Indy. He lives in the NJ Skylands with his partner, two cats, and and a bearded dragon.
- Chip O'Chang, Contributing Writerhttps://ridgeviewecho.com/author/chip-ochang-contributing-writer/
- Chip O'Chang, Contributing Writerhttps://ridgeviewecho.com/author/chip-ochang-contributing-writer/
- Chip O'Chang, Contributing Writerhttps://ridgeviewecho.com/author/chip-ochang-contributing-writer/
- Chip O'Chang, Contributing Writerhttps://ridgeviewecho.com/author/chip-ochang-contributing-writer/
