Protests over the recent detention of at least a dozen people by federal immigration agents in Hampton Bays and Westhampton continued to ripple across the South Fork last week — with dozens of angry residents flooding into the Southampton Town Board meeting on Wednesday and staging a demonstration in Westhampton on Friday. As reported on 27east.com, more than three dozen residents filled the Town Board meeting room on November 12, one week after ICE agents conducted sweeps in Hampton Bays and Westhampton, arresting 12 people on charges of entering the United States illegally. Southampton Town Supervisor Maria Moore said she empathized with those angered by the deportation wave and the way ICE conducts its work and sought to assure residents that no town officials — including the Southampton Town Police Department — were notified that the federal agents on their way.

“I understand there is concern and anxiety because of the ICE activities we saw in Hampton Bays and Westhampton last week, and the most difficult part is that there is no clear accurate information coming our way,” she said. The supervisor added, “While immigration enforcement is a federal matter outside the jurisdiction of this town government that does not mean that we are indifferent or powerless.”

Moore said she would send a letter to Senator Chuck Schumer and U.S. Representative Nick LaLota asking that the town be better informed of ICE activity within its borders.

Meanwhile, this past Friday morning, more than 50 protesters lined the streets of Westhampton calling for ICE to stay away from the region.

“I’m very upset at the constant news about the way immigrants are being treated, even though they’re such an integral part of our community on Long Island,” David Saunders said at the protest. “It’s a thrill for me to be able to stand out here and tell my neighbors that I support due process in America.”

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Suffolk County will face a worsening housing crisis unless it can eliminate barriers such as overly restrictive zoning and high costs that slow development and push up prices for houses and rental apartments, affordable housing advocates and builders said on Friday.

Carl MacGowan reports in NEWSDAY that about a dozen speakers at a hearing convened by the county's Welfare to Work Commission said efforts to bring down housing costs had been routinely stymied by bureaucratic hurdles and poor infrastructure, as well as community opposition that tied up housing proposals for years, leaving homeownership out of reach for many middle-class Suffolk residents.

"Suffolk County is facing one of the most severe housing crises in its history," Pilar Moya-Mancera, executive director of the Greenlawn nonprofit Housing Help, said at a news conference before the hearing in the county office complex in Hauppauge. "We cannot wait 10 more years for housing solutions."

The Welfare to Work Commission, an advisory board for the Suffolk County Legislature, called the hearing as it prepares a report looking at systemic impediments to developing affordable housing.

Commission chairman Richard Koubek said before the hearing the average Suffolk resident must make about $218,000 to afford a typical single-family home, or $90,000 to pay $2,000 monthly rent.

But many residents make far less, he said, citing licensed practical nurses who earn an average $57,670 annually and supermarket cashiers who make $39,520 a year.

"This has been a struggle for Long Islanders for years and years," Koubek said.

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Local entrepreneurs share their stories at the “The Business of Mattituck,” a presentation organized by the Mattituck-Laurel Civic Association this evening at 6:30 p.m. in the Mattituck Park District headquarters at Veterans Beach. Tonight’s event is free to attend. All are welcome.

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A federal jury has ordered Suffolk County to...