A CITY UNDER PRESSURE
Hillsboro’s November 24th Work Session on ICE and immigration arrests and the aftermath of them was laid bare in this special meeting. The desire is to respond to a community reeling from ICE’s aggressive presence. The night revealed:
Emergency funding is already insufficient,
Our Hillsboro Schools are all being pushed into crisis,
Utility assistance is nearly drained,
Small businesses are losing workers and customers,
and the City remains unsure how to protect residents from escalating violations.
All of our City Councilors dug in for over 3 hours, and all participated—some in a measured fashion and others with intense passion.
THE YOUNGEST COUNCILOR BECOMES THE STRONGEST VOICE THIS NIGHT
When Mayor Beach Pace vacated her council seat to assume the mayorship, Cristian Salgado was appointed as the youngest member of the City Council.
Many wondered what kind of councilor he would become.
On Monday night, the answer became unmistakably clear:
He has become a bulldog for the Latino and immigrant community — forceful, urgent, and grounded in lived experience as someone who grew up undocumented.
Salgado did not speak cautiously. He spoke with purpose, clarity, and fire.
He pressed the Council repeatedly to act with urgency rather than bureaucracy:
“We can’t stop ICE, but we CAN create an apparatus to document violations and protect our people. This matters to me.”
When discussions drifted or slowed, he pushed them back into focus.
When staff hesitated on timelines, he forced clarity:
“This feels like kicking the can down the road… this is an emergency.”
(Salgado, paraphrased from discussion at 20:26–20:30 range of the transcript – see attached below)
Salgado’s leadership — surprising to some, given his newcomer status — reshaped the tone of the entire night.
That said, all of the Councilors participated in a way that we have not often seen in Hillsboro, and they shone. This is no normal issue, and these are not normal times.
KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THE WORK SESSION
1. CITY ADMITS: FUNDING IS ALREADY “NOT ENOUGH.”
Staff openly stated that community funding requests to help children and families being affected by deportations in their sphere or the community they serve far exceed available dollars.
“Spoiler alert — it’s not enough.”
Council agreed to explore additional emergency funds.
2. SCHOOLS REPORT A FULL-BLOWN CRISIS
ICE fear is directly affecting schools:
Students are too afraid to attend
Families moving children into online learning
Food insecurity rising
Homelessness rising
Emergency staffing needs identified
The city is considering:
$40,000 for McKinney-Vento homeless-student support
$40,000 for expanded online-learning staffing
This is the most serious school disruption since COVID.
3. UTILITY ASSISTANCE NEARLY EXHAUSTED
The City’s utility-bill assistance fund is:
80% spent
Only six months into the fiscal year
The Council discussed finding ways to delay shutoffs as a temporary safeguard.
4. MAJOR DEBATE: CREATING A HUMAN & CIVIL RIGHTS OFFICE
This was the night’s centerpiece — and where Cristian Salgado took the strongest stand.
Salgado’s position:
Hillsboro must create a city-run civil rights apparatus
The city’s authority carries more weight than nonprofits
Data must be collected professionally and safely on arrests/takings
ICE abuses must be documented accurately
This work must be separate from the Police Department
The community is suffering NOW — not later
- A discussion about outsourcing or funding such an effort to the
“We hold more weight than a CBO (Community Based Organizations)… we have the resources, the systems, and the responsibility.”
Opposition or hesitation from others:
Some councilors raised concerns about:
Privacy risks for undocumented residents
Duplication of work performed by Centro Cultural, Adelante Mujeres, and Bienestar
Whether the city has the capacity
Whether this should instead be a CBO role
Emerging middle-ground option:
A hybrid model
City-led data + CBO partnership
Advisory committee with community representation
A “Human Rights Officer” inside the city government
Staff will return with multiple models for adoption. This was a very productive exchange that may lead somewhere. Salgado has an interesting and necessary plan. At this juncture, we have no idea how many residents of Hillsboro have been arrested/taken, what their names are, if the arrests were legal, if they had citizenship, who was involved in the arrest, the time/date/place of arrest, and if any civil rights or laws were violated. The record must be kept, and the fact that so many people are now gone, and the devastation left behind, is unacceptable.
5. COUNCIL TENSIONS SURFACE
This was one of the most emotionally charged sessions in recent memory.
Several tense moments included:
Salgado pushing hard for action
Sinclair echoing urgency
Alcaire advocating for CBO-led roles
Councilor Harris, a former lawyer of 40 years, raising legal nuances
Comments expressing fear
Mayor Pace managing the rising conflict –
The crisis is allowing the Council to show who they are and what they are about. Fractures are evident within the council, and the potential for positive action lies in a consensus that is unfolding in real time.
6. SANCTUARY CITY CODIFICATION DISCUSSED
The city attorney began outlining what it would take to transform Hillsboro from a symbolic sanctuary (via a 2017 resolution) into a legally binding sanctuary city.
This includes:
defining “public facilities,”
specifying what ICE cannot do on city property,
clarifying enforcement limitations,
integrating state Sanctuary Promise Act obligations.
This could become a historic legal shift in city policy. It is unclear, but it does not appear to be this more esoteric issue, a crucial one at that, that is going to move into the urgent level that the others do.
Wrapping Up This Work Session:
And here’s the truth, straight up, the way we talk it out on Main Street:
Hillsboro is not some quiet little suburb anymore.
We’re a city in the middle of a storm — a real one — where families are scared to open their doors, kids won’t walk to school, and longtime neighbors are watching everything they built start to slip. And while the “brown” people who have been the backbone by which this town was built are out here catching the brunt of it, the system we’re supposed to trust is still trying to figure out what gear it’s in.
That’s why what we saw Monday night matters.
A young councilor — Cristian Salgado — stepped up and showed this town what leadership looks like when you’ve lived the fear yourself. He wasn’t polished. He wasn’t political. He was real, and he spoke like someone who knows exactly what it feels like to hide in the backseat when an unmarked car slows down. That matters in a moment when people are begging to be seen. And this is not to cast any shade on Councilor Alcaire, who also comes from those same roots and works so hard for her/our community. Everyone shone- Cristian just had a coming out party of who he appears to be, and I will use the word bulldog, again.
Let’s be clear:
This crisis isn’t about left or right.
It’s not about politics.
It’s about humanity — and whether Hillsboro is going to stand by all of its people or leave a large percentage of them to fend for themselves in their own hometown.
We’re at a crossroads.
One road is easy: look away, slow walk it, hope ICE gets bored and moves on.
The other road — the right one — means standing up, calling this what it is, and building a city that fights for its most vulnerable even when it’s uncomfortable.
Monday night proved something important:
There are people on that dais ready to fight.
Now we’ll see if the rest of City Hall keeps up. Assistant City Manager Rahim Harji did a masterful job, and this crisis is showcasing his strengths. There is no doubt that the pressure from the hundreds of citizens who have spoken out this past month has made all the difference. If you are among them, you are being heard.
And as always — the Herald will be here, with our boots on the ground, notebook out, eyes wide open.
This is our city. These are our neighbors.
And no matter how loud things get, we’re not going anywhere.
Hillsboro Strong. Hillsboro Watching. Hillsboro Awake.
A song for a friend-
As a Hillsboro resident who listened intently to last night’s city council session, I want to suggest an immediate solution to our immigration enforcement concerns.
Instead of spending months and limited resources building a local database, we should direct residents to the **Oversight Immigration Enforcement Dashboard**: https://oversightdemocrats.house.gov/immigration-dashboard
This federal tool already does exactly what we need—it’s a verified, public database tracking ICE and CBP misconduct that’s trusted nationwide. It’s easy to use and immediately accessible.
**Actionable steps for our community:**
– Report incidents directly to the dashboard
– Share the link on social media alongside your posts
– Make your voice heard on a platform that Congress, journalists, and the nation can see
Our residents are already documenting what’s happening locally. Let’s channel that energy into a tool that creates real accountability right now, not months from now. The dashboard amplifies Hillsboro’s experiences while contributing to national oversight—no waiting, no bureaucracy, just immediate action.
RIP Sarah Berkstrom W. Virginia National Guard
Now this is a “Crisis”!
When you’re in such a hurry to say “whattabout” that you misspell your own name…
Immigrant fraud is widespread across the US and you can be sure it is in Hillsboro too !
Somali refugees who came to the United States after their country’s civil war were raised in a culture in which stealing from the country’s dysfunctional and corrupt government was widespread. Minnesota proved susceptible to rampant fraud because it is “so tolerant, so open and so geared toward keeping an eye on the weak.”
Federal prosecutors say that 59 people have been convicted in Minnesota welfare schemes so far, and that more than $1 billion in taxpayers’ money has been stolen in three plots they are investigating. The episode has raised broader questions for some residents about the sustainability of Minnesota’s Scandinavian-modeled system of robust safety net programs bankrolled by high taxes. That system helped create an environment that drew immigrants to the state over many decades, including tens of thousands of Somalis.
In 2020, Minnesota Department of Education officials who administered the program aimed at feeding hungry children became overwhelmed by the number of applicants seeking to register new feeding sites and began raising questions about the plausibility of some invoices. Feeding Our Future, the nonprofit group that was the largest provider in the pandemic program, responded with a warning. In an email, the group told the state agency that failing to promptly approve new applicants from “minority-owned businesses” would result in a lawsuit featuring accusations of racism that would be “sprawled across the news.” “This was a huge part of the problem,” Mr. Thompson said during an interview in the summer. “Allegations of racism can be a reputation or career killer.” “Greedy people and businesses have learned how to exploit our programs,” James Clark, the inspector general at the Department of Human Services, told lawmakers during a recent hearing. “Fraud is the business model.”