A coalition of civil rights and community organizations has launched the Crawford County Rapid Response Network (RRN) to monitor and document Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity in the region, providing a hotline for residents to report federal actions that may violate constitutionally protected rights.
The Meadville chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), French Creek Indivisible, Crawford County United and Erie County United created a network of nearly 45 volunteers.
Attorney John Mizner, an Erie-based civil rights lawyer who is originally from Meadville, told The Meadville Tribune that, “The United States Supreme Court has consistently maintained that, ‘Even one whose presence in this country is unlawful, involuntary or transitory’ is protected by the Due Process provisions of the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments.”
Furthermore, he explained that the Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable search and seizure. ICE officials are permitted to conduct activities within 100 miles of the U.S. border; however, the Fourth Amendment does not permit random stops.
“For example, the Fourth Amendment prohibits stopping all Mexican-Americans to ask if they are aliens,” Mizner said. “Instead, the government must have reasonable suspicion that the individual is illegally present in the United States.”
Currently, in the region, Mizner said, there has been a concern over those Fourth Amendment considerations as the federal administration has a new interpretation of the law.
ICE is tasked with enforcing federal immigration laws, including identifying and removing individuals who are in the country illegally or who have committed crimes. The agency maintains that its operations target individuals who pose threats to public safety or national security and are conducted in accordance with federal law.
A common legal issue in the region, Mizner said, is whether immigration officials had reasonable suspicion when stopping individuals. The RRN trains volunteers to observe and document ICE activity without interfering with law enforcement to ensure that if those constitutional rights are not being followed, the incident is properly recorded.
The way the RRN works is if someone notices suspicious activity that might be ICE, they can call the hotline, and a team leader will triage the call and deploy trained observers. The RRN has 30 observers trained to observe, film the incident if possible and document what happened.
“If you know someone who you think is an immigrant, there’s three pieces of information you want from them,” said Judy Dauson, with French Creek Indivisible. “Their first and last name, their birth date and their A-number, which is their alien information number. … Once they’re picked up, then they’re gone unless someone has those three items of information and can somehow connect with a lawyer.”
Mizner confirmed that an individual’s country of birth is also needed. He noted that immigration officials have begun using federal prisons to hold detainees for immigration proceedings or charge detainees with federal migration criminal charges. In these cases, they may need to search the Federal Bureau of Prison’s online inmate locator rather than ICE’s Online Detainee Locator System, making it harder to locate individuals, even if they have that information.
RRN organizers said they are creating a database to find and follow up with anyone taken from the county, using those pieces of information.
“I think it’s important to follow up,” said Melissa Groh, the organizer with Crawford County United. “You don’t know the family situation. They might have kids at home.”
Arnold Johnson IV, the NAACP political action chair, added that the individuals may also have medical needs that need to be addressed.
Johnson, along with the other organizers, said that the trends he’s seen across the country and now in his own neighborhood are worrisome, noting that his own family is scared to go outside and be apprehended due to racial profiling.
“There are a lot of people who are just gone; we don’t know where they are,” he said. “And that’s just wrong on so many levels.”
So far, the network had one call to its hotline, which turned out to be a false alarm. But it served as a test run for the team, which got an observer to the scene in under 20 minutes.
“I see a two-prong effort here,” Dauson said. “One is to get to know who the people are and to be educated in terms of what their rights are. And then the other prong is to show up at these raids or events and give what support is necessary.”
She said this approach follows an organic movement across the nation to protect people in their communities.
“We want to protect our small communities,” Johnson said, to which Dauson replied, “and our people and our neighbors.”
They see the RRN as a way to cross-collaborate and make the work they all do as impactful as possible. Organizers also said they’ve been in contact with local law enforcement regarding the network.
Regarding ICE activity in the area, there have been arrests that The Meadville Tribune has not been able to receive information about, despite filing Freedom of Information Act requests and appeals.
Meadville Police Department Chief Michael Stefanucci said that his department has never spoken to or been contacted by ICE but has been in contact with U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP).
If an individual is arrested, they could be sent to various facilities in the region. When The Meadville Tribune spoke to CBP last year, a spokesperson confirmed that most people in the area are sent to the Moshannon Valley Processing Facility in Clearfield County. While Erie County Jail maintains a contract with ICE to hold detainees, Crawford County Jail does not. Warden Jack Greenfield clarified to The Meadville Tribune that although the facility doesn’t contract with ICE, it does not reject ICE arrests if they have a detainer or new charges filed against them.
Legal challenges mount
Mizner said a major legal issue being litigated in Pennsylvania federal courts concerns whether detainees are receiving adequate due process under a new federal policy. On July 8, 2025, ICE and the U.S. Department of Justice announced a new policy that anyone who entered the U.S. without inspection, regardless of when they are apprehended, is now subject to mandatory detention without bond. The policy represents a change in the government’s interpretation of federal immigration law.
However, federal courts across the state have rejected the interpretation, and one federal judge found that every district in Western Pennsylvania is not subject to mandatory detention, citing 56 cases decided on or before Dec. 5, 2025. Moreover, another federal judge in Philadelphia identified at least 282 district court decisions that have determined that the government has misread the Immigration and Nationality Act.
“These detentions violate the detainees’ due process rights because detainees have an interest of not being physically detained by the government, which is the most elemental of liberty interests,” Mizner said, noting that courts have found detainees are being held erroneously without procedural safeguards, including the ability to obtain a bond hearing. “Finally, in many of these cases, the government has not provided any information suggesting that the detainee is a flight risk or danger to his community.”
Despite legal uncertainty, the organizers of Crawford County’s RRN say their goal is simple: Ensure no one from their community disappears without a trace. They’re distributing cards with legal rights information and creating flyers on how residents can advocate for their neighbors.
The hotline is anonymous, organizers said, so callers need not be worried about having to identify themselves when reporting activity. In a year, they say success would look like no calls at all, but if they do get any, they’re hoping to get people due process.
The hotline number is (814) 580-7090.
This article was originally published by the Meadville Tribune on January 24, 2026. Written by Chloe Forbes. Read the original article at meadvilletribune.com.