Glen Cove Rapid Response Network Monitors ICE Activity

Families in Glen Cove are living in fear. A network of roughly 50 volunteers is working to make sure they don’t face that fear alone.

The Glen Cove Rapid Response Network has been monitoring, verifying and responding to ICE activity across Glen Cove and surrounding North Shore communities since late 2025. Organizer Leslie Dwyer says the group formed after local organizers connected with the Port Washington Rapid Response Network to learn how to serve their community effectively.

“We would like to see less racial profiling, less violence, fewer people being detained who don’t have criminal records and families not being torn apart,” Dwyer said. “This living fear has got to stop.”

The network operates through four committees: advocacy, education, mutual aid and a rapid response observer committee. Volunteers can participate in multiple committees depending on where they can contribute most.

Glen Cove has become a focal point for immigration enforcement in Nassau County. The Glen Cove Rapid Response Network reports double-digit ICE encounters in the area since June 2025, when four unidentified people were taken into federal custody near the Glen Street LIRR station. Islip Forward, a website that tracks ICE activity across Long Island, confirmed additional encounters in Glen Cove as recently as February 12 and March 6 of this year.

The community is taking notice. At a Glen Cove City Council meeting on March 10, residents lined up to voice concerns about enforcement in their neighborhoods. One woman told council members that an ICE agent threatened her directly, saying the agent told her he knew where she lived. Dwyer said members of the network have also been approached and photographed by ICE agents.

“This is happening right in our backyard, and it is happening where people are being racially profiled and people are being detained who have no criminal background,” Dwyer said.

Glen Cove has a 53.9% white majority, a lower percentage than the Nassau County average, and advocates say that demographic reality shapes how enforcement plays out on the ground. The network argues that residents without any criminal history are being swept up in raids, and that families are being separated in the process.

State Assembly Member Charles Lavine joined network members and community residents at an information session in January. More than 150 people attended to learn about their constitutional rights under the current federal enforcement climate. The session points to a broader effort to make sure residents understand what protections they have, regardless of immigration status.

Dwyer said the Glen Cove network built its foundation by studying how other local groups operated. Organizers consulted specifically with the Port Washington Rapid Response Network before launching their own structure. That kind of coordination between North Shore communities reflects a wider push across Nassau County to create organized, community-based responses to federal enforcement actions.

Mayor Pam Panzenbeck did not provide additional comment on ICE activity in Glen Cove for this story.

For parents in districts like Glen Cove, the stakes extend into the classroom. When families are afraid to send their children to school, or when a parent disappears on the way to work, the impact lands directly on students. Teachers and school staff are increasingly navigating a reality where a child’s home life has been upended by an enforcement action, and where students are sitting in classrooms uncertain about whether their families are safe.

The Glen Cove Rapid Response Network is asking anyone in the community who witnesses ICE activity to contact them so they can monitor and verify what is happening. They are also encouraging residents to know their rights before any encounter with federal agents.

For a community where fear has become part of daily life, the network offers something concrete. Not a guarantee of protection, but the knowledge that neighbors are watching, paying attention and ready to respond.