Port Washington weekly vigils honor community members arrested by ICE

Bagel shop manager Fernando Mejia was arrested by federal agents just over a year ago in the Port Washington store’s parking lot. Since then, including Monday evening, members of the Port Washington community have kept a weekly vigil to honor Mejia, who they consider one of their own, and bring attention to how his abrupt arrest, and ultimate deportation, left a void in his family, at his workplace and among anyone in town who knew him.

For 52 consecutive Mondays, they have flocked to the Main Street side of the Port Washington Long Island Rail Road station as a tribute to Mejia and their other immigrant neighbors who have been arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and never returned home. The weekly 7 p.m. effort, dubbed the “Port Shines a Light in a Sea of Darkness” vigil by organizers, began a few weeks after Mejia’s June 12 arrest and has continued, even after he agreed to self deport and return to family in his native El Salvador.

Vigil co-organizer Jeff Seigel, 68, told the crowd of about 75 people — many toting handwritten protest signs — that Mejia was “doing well, although well is a relative term.”

Mejia is unable come back to Port Washington to see his teenage daughter, who stood in the crowd Monday evening and who Seigel said flies to El Salvador for visits.

“He came here when he was about 20 years old, and here in the United States is where he became a man,” Seigel, 68, said. “He worked very hard, always. And it is here in the United States where he became a father. … After five months in detention, he could no longer wait to see if the immigration court would rule in his favor.”

Mejia, the former manager of Schmear Bagel & Cafe on Main Street, one block west of where each vigil is held, was one of about 3,000 Long Islanders arrested by federal immigration agents through March 10 as part of President Donald Trump’s ramped-up deportation push since his return to power, Newsday previously reported.

Mejia had just started his car in the bagel shop’s parking lot about 6:30 a.m. on June 12 to make a delivery when federal agents converged and placed him under arrest. Over the months that followed, Mejia bounced from facility-to-facility — first in Manhattan, then in Newark, Louisiana and Miami. He does not have a criminal record, his attorney, Bryan Richard Pu-Folkes, previously told Newsday. Pu-Folkes said at the time Mejia was likely detained due to a January 2006 deportation order from the Executive Office for Immigration Review for unlawful presence in the country.

Pu-Folkes did not immediately return a phone message Monday seeking comment. Mejia could not be immediately reached for comment.

The weekly efforts help community organizers raise awareness and funds for legal fees and even food for immigrants in the community. Another goal, said Stan Lacy, also a vigil organizer, is distributing whistles throughout the community. As Lacy and other members of Port Washington’s Rapid Response Network drive around Port Washington and encounter ICE agents, they blow whistles to alert immigrants of their presence.

After a trio of arrests “a little over a month ago,” ICE’s presence has been “relatively quiet,” he said.

Fellow organizer Stacey Mellus told Newsday the weekly vigils sometimes draw immigrants thankful for the community support, but not so much “when more ICE activity is in the area, when the climate gets a little more hot.”

“I witnessed one of those abductions here, you’re never going to get over something like that,” Mellus, 50, of Port Washington, said. “I’m never going to get over seeing people separated from their families, people yelling ‘don’t take my husband.’ “