Camden community members continue to condemn the recent detainment of Jian Hao Zhang, the longtime resident who ran a popular Chinese American restaurant in the quiet Central New York village.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on June 25 took Zhang, 56, from his business and placed him in a blacked out van while Zhang’s family, Police Chief Sean Redden and concerned residents observed.
The raid shook up the rural community where Zhang has lived for decades.
But while residents reeled from a respected neighbor’s arrest, the Camden Police Department prepared to enter an agreement with ICE, the agency responsible for Zhang’s detainment.
On July 2, a week after Zhang’s detainment, the Camden Police Department agreed to allow two of its nine officers to be trained and authorized to enforce immigration law and assist on ICE raids.
Standing beneath a windswept American flag on the Camden Police Department’s front steps, the village’s police chief on Tuesday explained his rationale.
Redden told a Central Current reporter he signed the agreement at the behest of one of his officers, hoping the pact will grant Camden police greater access to intelligence and other resources.
When a reporter asked Redden whether the village’s leadership knew he signed the agreement, the police chief grinned.
“They don’t know,” Redden said.
Redden did not inform the local government that he signed an agreement that could see Camden police officers physically assisting ICE arrests and detainments – or performing them on their own – just as President Donald Trump supercharged the agency with another $75 billion in the next federal budget.
In a town where 73% of voters backed Trump, who during his campaign called for deportations of undocumented immigrants, Zhang is still viewed as a quintessential American. By the town’s accounts, he was respected. Another restaurant owner called Zhang “good people.”
Police union stickers — for Rome police, New York state troopers and Oneida County deputies — adorned the door to China Moon, Zhang’s restaurant. In a town with fewer than a dozen eateries, China Moon was a mainstay. It has remained closed since Zhang’s arrest.
Camden Town Supervisor Daniel Christmas and Village of Camden Mayor Jeffrey Oatman did not return a Central Current reporter’s multiple requests for interviews for this story.
Erin Laplante, a Trustee on the Village of Camden Board, learned on Tuesday from a Central Current reporter that Redden signed the contract. Laplante serves as the village’s Commissioner to the Police Department.
“It doesn’t really matter whether I’m familiar or not,” Laplante said, “and we will not be giving you any information.”
‘A horrible gray area’
Camden residents, like LaPlante, were unaware that their police chief was planning to hitch the village to ICE’s wagon.
In neighboring businesses, residents were reluctant to talk about China Moon. Some said it was a matter of privacy. After all, Zhang’s family asked the Camden community not to organize fundraisers or other grassroots support for the detained restaurateur, and even asked community members not to discuss the arrest.
Residents likewise had little to say about Camden’s new partnership with ICE. Workers at the studio and the Camden liquor store, next to China Moon, both said they didn’t know enough to comment on Zhang’s detainment and their police chief’s new ICE agreement.
Employees at Shorty Deli declined to comment on the recent developments, calling politics a “powderkeg.” Next door, employees at the insurance agency said they wished to remain neutral.
A block down the road, though, barbers Mike Merritt and Eli Simmons have become used to speaking with reporters about the China Moon raid, a restaurant both men used to frequent.
“This is like if they came over and took the guys from Avicoli’s and sent them to Italy,” Merritt said, referring to a pizza shop across the street. “It’s unfortunate. You hate to see it.”
Other residents flinched and recoiled at the mention of Zhang. The barbers barely raised their eyes from their clients as they talked about his detainment.
“He’s lived in this community for over 30 years,” Merritt said.
“He’s lived on American soil for longer than I have,” Simmons said.
“He owns a business, he put his kids through school,” Merritt said.
“It’s unfortunate,” Simmons said.
The pair said Zhang’s arrest reflects a “horrible gray area” in the mass deportation campaign: what to do with longtime law-abiding residents who broke the law to get here.
Zhang reportedly entered the country on a fraudulent visa in 1990. ICE did not respond to a Central Current reporter who inquired why Zhang was taken, and did not provide his case number. A spokesperson said the agency did not answer the Central Current reporter’s questions about Zhang’s future, citing safety concerns.
While Simmons understands that the federal government’s broad policies don’t leave much room to “pick and choose,” he couldn’t accept what happened to Zhang.
“Nobody wants violent people or criminals running around our streets,” Merritt said. “But at the same time, nobody wants to see what just happened with Mr. Zhang, where you’ve got a normal, everyday member of our community being taken.”
Simmons can get behind detaining and deporting violent criminals, but he said Camden doesn’t have many violent individuals or gangs at all. And even if the village did host violent actors ripe for ICE’s taking, Zhang does not resemble the MS-13 and Tren de Aragua gang members that Trump insists are the mass deportations’ target, they said.
“It’s not like we just saw a gang member get arrested,” Merritt said. “We just saw a local business owner detained.”
Merrit and Simmons hope Zhang’s strong community standing will lead to a swift release from ICE, which maintains Zhang has expired all legal recourse.
Even so, the barbers think China Moon will eventually reopen, and, like many other community members, plan to flood the restaurant with business if the Zhang family does start selling food again.
One of less than a dozen eateries, including gas stations and chain restaurants, in Camden, China Moon was popular. Merritt said they served the best Chinese food in Oneida County.
He and Simmons joked that the only sin Zhang had ever committed was maybe being late with an order or two on busy Saturday nights, when China Moon used to be “slammed to the walls.”
Not a single person in Camden is happy with Zhang’s detainment, said Merritt, who emphasized that China Moon was the only Chinese restaurant in the area.
Acknowledging the community is politically conservative, Simmons said that Camden voters wanted lower taxes, untaxed tips, and deportation of actual criminals — but not Mr. Zhang.
“This isn’t really what people voted for,” Merritt said. “These aren’t the people that anybody wanted taken away.”
‘A few extra bodies’
Chief Sean Redden on Tuesday confirmed to Central Current reporters that his department signed a “Task Force Model” 287(g) agreement with ICE, which will authorize Camden police officers to enforce immigration law.
As the agreement is still new, Redden said he had few details to provide, but said he established the partnership in the hopes of gaining intelligence to better protect the Camden community.
“I see that being very limited on our end, we’re a very small department,” Redden said. “For me, the agreement also opens up the doors for resources, in case we come across anything that’s larger that we’re not usually dealing with at a small rural department.”
One of three types of 287(g) agreements, the “task force model” is the most controversial., The Obama administration curtailed the use of task force model 287(g) agreements, and the first Trump and Biden administrations never tried to revive it.
But on the first day of his second administration, Trump exhumed the “task force model” agreement, and has since used the contracts to deputize local cops to act as federal agents around the country.
Some states — including New Jersey, Colorado, and Illinois — have enacted laws to prevent local law enforcement from signing 287(g) agreements.
On June 24, one day before ICE agents detained Zhang, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights published a factsheet outlining the expansion of ICE contracts with local police, which are numerous and quickly spreading.
ICE’s website states that as of July 18, the agency has 825 active 287(g) agreements across 40 states, with another 31 agreements pending.
Redden doesn’t think the agreement he signed will result in his officers regularly assisting ICE on operations in his town — but the police chief expects to assist raids in nearby cities.
“Whenever I agreed to getting involved in this, I didn’t imagine that it would be here,” Redden said. “I figured they’d have something going on in Syracuse, Utica, Rome, and they might need a couple extra bodies.”
‘Send him home’
Sporting a simple gray t-shirt bearing a “Proud to be an American” decal, 83-year-old Ray Deuel had come to the Village of Camden Veteran of Foreign Affairs Post to coordinate the disposal of an aged American flag.
Though not a veteran himself, Deuel regularly visits the local VFW when he wants to update his flag, dropping off old flags for the VFW to burn alongside other Old Glories in a flag retirement ceremony.
Deuel supports the current federal government and its ongoing deportations.
“Anything they want to do to cut back on the illegal immigration. No matter the nationality or ethnicity of the individual,” Deuel said. “Send them back where they came from.”
Deuel has lived in Camden for 26 years, since he inherited land from his grandmother. Deuel is a firm believer that there is a right way and a wrong way to become an American.
“I got lucky,” Deuel said. “I was born here.”
Unfazed by the news of the new agreement between ICE and Camden police, Deuel broadly supports ICE targeting those who entered the country the wrong way.
However, Zhang’s detainment is an exception, Deuel said. He was “flabbergasted” when ICE agents took Zhang from China Moon, he said. Though Deuel wasn’t a regular customer, he knew of the Zhangs and thinks highly of the family, who he said have lived in Camden longer than he has.
Deuel can’t wrap his head around the federal government targeting a quiet family who has integrated into the village community over an administrative discrepancy dating back decades.
“It’s a little bit late to be snagging people up off the street, especially when they’ve established a righteous reputation here in the village,” Deuel said.
Since Zhang’s arrest, Deuel has followed the story closely in the local newspaper, questioning why it was necessary for the restaurateur to be detained.
Deuel believed that ICE had released Zhang, and was surprised when a Central Current reporter said that Zhang remained in ICE custody. A search of ICE’s Detainee Locator System yields limited information on Zhang’s whereabouts and legal prospects but confirms he is in ICE’s custody in a Batavia federal detention facility.
“Of all the people in the world, why pick on them?” Deuel said. “Because they’re Chinese. I answer my own question. But at any rate, no, that’s wrong.”
Deuel said he thought ICE agents had just picked Zhang up to question him about his immigration status before eventually releasing him.
Like other residents, Deuel is hopeful that ICE agents will eventually release Zhang on account of his reputation for being an upstanding resident of Camden.
Though still supportive of the general mass deportation operations sweeping the nation, Deuel thinks the solution for the Zhang issue is simple.
“Let him loose. Send him home. Eliminate all the records,” Deuel said.
“Forget about the man.”
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