NORTHAMPTON — Amid concerns that Northampton could be the next target of an unwelcome U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement visit, a City Council committee held a panel this week to discuss immigration justice — in the wake of ICE agents fatally shooting immigrants in Texas and Maine.

A virtual hearing of the council’s Committee on Community Resources Monday featured several leaders in the field who gathered to discuss what they can — and can’t — do to protect immigrants in the community.

Laurie Millman, executive director of the Center for New Americans, explained that much of the nonprofit’s work to connect local immigrants with community and state resources has been hindered by federal funding cuts under President Donald Trump’s administration. Among those resources are immigration legal services, English classes and more.

“Everything we do is to try and help people get access to opportunities and resources and everything the [Trump] administration is doing is to thwart everything we’re doing,” Millman said. “The Massachusetts state government has done a lot here … our legislators and the state Office of Refugees and Immigrants and the [Attorney General’s] Office have been bold.”

Since immigrants are not provided the same right to a free legal defense during court proceedings as citizens are, Millman said her organization relies heavily on the Massachusetts Access to Counsel Initiative (MACI) program to connect income-eligible immigrants with lawyers in the event of an ICE detention. While it’s great the program is funded, Millman noted that there are more calls for help than there are attorneys to field them.

Others on the panel were Stan Schapiro, a LUCE Immigrant Justice Network representative; Elliot Oberholtzer, coordinator of the Western Massachusetts Asylum Network; and Jenny Bender, a member of the Immigrant Solidarity Collective (ISC).

Schapiro explained that LUCE began as an immigrant-led response to concerns that ICE agents had been spotted in neighborhoods across Massachusetts. The organization operates a statewide hotline through which volunteers log suspected ICE sightings and deploy “verifiers” to assess whether federal law enforcement is present.

Explaining that verifiers later report back to the hotline, and if necessary, publish a warning to the community online, Schapiro said that verifiers also accompany immigrants to court and hold “watching spots” at areas ICE frequents.

Schapiro suggested that members of the public keep the ICE hotline phone number handy and reach out to LUCE if they wish to volunteer or receive bystander training.

Bender, who is one of the eight members of the Immigrant Solidarity Collective (ISC), explained that the organization began in response to one of its members witnessing someone being arrested by Northampton police. Weeks later, that person was deported, she said.

“We’re holding very sensitive information about people whose lives are very literally at stake, so we’re very careful about who receives information about the families that we’re now growing with,” Bender said. “One of the main things that we’re starting to do is launch care collectives, or little pods that we’re connecting with immigrant families.”

Bender suggested that the city post immigration justice information and resources on its website and start a legal fund for immigrants. She also suggested adopting changes to local policing practices, such as putting less focus on enforcing minor traffic infractions.

“Fundraising is a huge need because [legal service] is so expensive,” Bender said. “Having our local police pull people over for minor traffic infractions is literally costing people their lives, it’s ripping apart local families. We know several families who live in Northampton whose lives have been upended because of things like a minor traffic violation that later leads to detainment, and later deportation.”

Oberholtzer, who practices as an attorney, explained that the Massachusetts Asylum Network operates a “pro se” project to support people who cannot find or afford an attorney to help them move their own immigration cases forward. The organization also offers a detention support program to help families and loved ones of detained individuals.

Speaking more specifically about support and safety for Northampton’s immigrant community, Oberholtzer echoed Bender’s remarks, explaining that narrowing the scope of local law enforcement will help protect immigrants from detention or deportation.

“The concrete, specific way to make Northampton safer for immigrant community members right now is to reduce the scope, the resources and the reach of the police department,” Oberholtzer said. “That is the biggest, the most impactful and the most necessary intervention.”

Oberholtzer favors non-police responses to domestic violence, substance use issues, immigration and traffic enforcement — a point he brought up with the council in 2019.

Councilors on the Community Resources Committee questioned whether the city could direct such changes of police, with Ward 5 City Councilor Aline Davis asking if they had the authority to narrow or roll back the scope of policing in the city. She also questioned what should be considered a minor traffic stop that would not require police intervention.

In response, Oberholtzer explained that the city’s Safe City Ordinance, which went into effect in 2019, “directs Northampton Police to not comply with discretionary requests” in order to collaborate with ICE.

“What the welcoming city ordinance doesn’t prevent is the actual action of the arrest — sending people’s data into the federal databases that ICE has access to,” Oberholtzer said. “It also doesn’t prevent ICE actually coming to Northampton to then act on that information that it gets in a direct stream from police after every arrest.”

Bender, responding to Davis’ traffic stop question, pointed to Philadelphia’s “Driving Equality” law, which prohibits police from pulling over vehicles for minor infractions such as late registration, a missing headlight or brake light, expired inspection stickers, bumper issues, or items hanging from the rearview mirror.

“Some of the people we know who have been taken were pulled over for a cracked windshield or an expired registration, things like that,” Bender said. “As soon as someone’s license is put into the system, ICE knows where they are.”

Councilors later discussed how a local ordinance or resolution mirroring Philadelphia’s law might be carried out, noting that while resolutions lack legal teeth, more direct measures might be beyond the council’s power.

Northampton Police Chief John Cartledge, in a written statement sent to the Gazette on Thursday, commented on the ideas on policing raised at Monday’s meeting, explaining that the Police Department has a duty to ensure public safety, while enforcing state law, as well as the city’s Safe City Ordinance.

“The Northampton Police Department follows the laws of the Commonwealth, Northampton’s Safe City Ordinance, and the Mayor’s Executive Order governing interactions with federal immigration enforcement,” Cartledge wrote. “The department’s role is to faithfully implement those laws and policies while carrying out its public safety responsibilities.”

Soledad Thurman, from ISC, said that even though she is a U.S. citizen, the stress of possible detainment from law enforcement has made her, and families she knows, fearful.

“I am a citizen, but the fear to see the police outside, or passing by me is so extreme,” said Thurman, who has lived in this country for 23 years. “I have families who will come and say ‘I’m afraid, my children are afraid — they don’t want to go to school because they are afraid.’ Those things are happening here in Northampton. They are happening all over the country, but they are happening here in Northampton … it’s not just that they’re killing us, they’re killing our souls.”