Immigrant advocate Sister Yliana Hernandez prepares community for possible ICE raids, family separation
Already an advocate for young women, Sister Yliana Hernandez of the Sisters of the Presentation said Friday during an interview at her New Windsor home that her faith is now leading her to fight for immigrants' rights and dignity as a new president and new cabinet come into power.
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A former middle school principal is turning her attention to protecting and educating immigrants ahead of possible changes in federal immigration enforcement policies.
She told News 12 that she is trying to keep undocumented families from being deported, but also lobbying for a compassionate, long-term fix to a broken system.
Already an advocate for young women, Sister Yliana Hernandez of the Sisters of the Presentation said Friday during an interview at her New Windsor home that her faith is now leading her to fight for immigrants' rights and dignity as a new president and new cabinet come into power.
She fears a repeat of ICE raids and family separation that happened during Donald Trump's first term.
"Children were taken out of the arms of their mothers," she recalled. "People were deported."
Hernandez is part of an interfaith coalition pushing for Hudson Valley cities to keep up their sanctuary policies that ban cooperation between local police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
Hudson Valley cities with sanctuary policies include Newburgh, Kingston, Poughkeepsie and Beacon.
An ICE spokesperson told News 12 earlier this week that the "lack of cooperation means criminal non-citizens are released back into communities with opportunity to reoffend."
Hernandez said she fully supports deportation of violent people who have been arrested by local police but does not trust the incoming administration to differentiate between violent and nonviolent undocumented immigrants.
"We have to protect our brothers and sisters who are here in the area without documents. They are not criminals," she said. "They are people like you and me."
She met several migrants who were staying at local hotels last year, including at the Crossroads Hotel in the Town of Newburgh, which housed male asylum seekers from Venezuela, northern Africa and eastern Europe.
She also spent time at the U.S.-Mexico border in Nogales, Arizona, helping asylum seekers from southern Mexico and Central America.
Hernandez said people who have been made to believe immigrants are mainly coming to the U.S. to steal American jobs and commit crimes need to see what she has seen.
"They were leaving because of the violence the narco-traffickers created in their place," she said. "They were not leaving because they wanted to come into the United States to sell drugs."
She fully agrees the U.S. immigration system needs to be changed, but said attitudes toward undocumented immigrants and their families must change, too.
"Our immigration laws are broken, and they need to be fixed in a compassionate way. We are a country of immigrants, and we can't forget that. That's what our Statue of Liberty says," she said.
The ICE spokesperson said the agency prioritizes removals of known gang members and other violent fugitives over nonviolent people, but could not say how policy might change under Trump.
News 12 has reached out to Trump's transition team for comment.
