Documents show Spencer police chief aided ICE in at least 11 arrests last month

ITHACA, N.Y. — The Village of Spencer in Tioga County has a police force that consists of just one part time officer: Chief of Police Michael Monteiro.

But with Monteiro’s help, the village of about 700 people has been the site of about a dozen arrests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in February alone, and at least 21 since June 2025.

During an ICE operation in Spencer late last June, Monteiro provided traffic control as federal agents arrested 10 individuals working at a farm. He reportedly told village officials at the time that he just happened to run into the operation.

But when ICE agents returned to the village during a Feb. 11 operation, documents suggest Monteiro took on an active role in both the planning and execution of the arrests.

On Feb. 11, Monteiro pulled over a white Toyota minivan on State Route 34, about a mile north of Spencer’s post office. Just prior, he radioed Tioga County dispatch at about 7:30 a.m. he would be “assisting [an]other agency.”

That other agency turned out to be ICE: the traffic stop was part of a planned operation that would ultimately result in the arrest of at least 11 people by federal agents.

The minivan had Indiana license plates, and when the dispatcher informed Monteiro that the plate number was “not on file,” neither seemed surprised on the police scanner audio.

“I thought you were going to say that,” Monteiro said to the dispatcher.

In a report detailing the incident, Monteiro wrote that he then “escorted” the nine passengers out of the vehicle, who he then “turned over to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

Witness photos and video suggest that federal agents waited nearby in unmarked vehicles while Monteiro carried out the traffic stop in his police cruiser.

Monteiro’s report states that by the end of the operation, a total of 12 people had been handed over to ICE — the initial nine from the Toyota minivan, plus three from a white Chevrolet passenger van that had been stopped just north of the village line.

An ICE spokesperson later confirmed that the agency had arrested 11 people alleged to have entered the U.S. illegally from Mexico. The reason for the discrepancy — and the fate of the potential 12th person described in Monteiro’s report — is yet unclear.

Monteiro’s report does not provide any other details as to how or if he determined the immigration status of any of the passengers.

In the report, Monteiro noted that he went to search the vehicles later that day at around 2:30 p.m., after they had been towed to a local impound lot. He found an identification card in a black backpack in the minivan, which he later turned over to ICE agents. It’s not clear if he had been asked to do so.

The Ithaca Voice obtained the plate numbers of both vehicles from scanner recordings and checked them using a licence plate look-up service. While the plate for the Chevrolet van appeared to be invalid, the plate for the Toyota minivan is registered to a vehicle with the same make, model, year and color.

Monteiro did not respond to multiple requests for comment by phone or email.

Spencer resident Nate Taylor said he was driving home on Feb. 11 after dropping off his daughter in Newfield, when he passed what he initially believed to be a traffic stop.

Taylor, who lives near the location of the arrest, shared photographs of the incident that are time stamped at 7:45 a.m. — just minutes after Monteiro would have pulled over the white Toyota minivan. Already, he said, federal agents were on the scene, suggesting that ICE agents and Monteiro had planned and coordinated the operation together.

“At the first stop, there was a blacked out SUV pulled across the front of a white minivan. And when I say blacked out, you couldn’t see through any of the windows,” Taylor said.

Taylor’s photos show at least one vehicle with a blacked-out licence plate pulled off the side of the road near the mini van and Monteiro’s police cruiser. He said he also saw agents wearing vests that identified them as ICE officials, though the agents are not visible in the photos.

Taylor said that as he approached the flashing lights, he noticed the second van, which had been stopped further up the same road.

Monteiro notes in his report that the second van eventually was stopped “just past the village line,” though it’s not clear whether it was him or federal agents who executed the second stop.

Three of the five people in that vehicle were also “handed over” to ICE.

Monteiro wrote that the other two passengers, both women, were “found to also be in the U.S. illegally” but were released due to a “lack of bed space” to detain the women. It’s unclear if agents ever returned to arrest the women.

An ICE spokesperson, who did not include their own name, provided names and specific charges for just four of the 11 people arrested, but contended that all had “committed a crime when they came into this country illegally.”

It’s not exactly clear how each of the 11 people got to Spencer, but their mere presence in the U.S. — documentation or not — is not a criminal offense on its own. Some undocumented immigrants may initially arrive in the U.S. legally but overstay their visa, which is only considered a civil offense under federal law. Entering the country illegally — for instance, without any visa at all — is considered a crime.

None of the charges provided were for violent crimes. Of the charges not related to immigration, the most severe was for operating a vehicle with forged license plates.

“Of the 11 arrested, nine have accepted voluntary departure, with seven having already been returned to Mexico. The remaining four illegal aliens are in ICE custody pending immigration proceedings,” an ICE spokesperson said in a March 2 email.

Of the four people named by the ICE spokesperson, only two of whom could be located in the agency’s online detainee locator system. Both people, Julio Hernandez-Ramirez and Andres Ruiz-Gomez, are being held at ICE’s detention center center in Batavia, near Buffalo. The other names provided by ICE were Ronaldo Hernandez-Perez and Fermin Diaz-Perez.

A review of inmate logs at county jails in Tioga and its neighboring counties suggest others arrested on Feb. 11 were not held locally.

Broome County’s jail has an agreement with ICE to hold people alleged to be in the country illegally through the federal agency’s 287(g) program. The program codifies cooperative agreements between local law enforcement or corrections facilities and ICE.

Neither the Village of Spencer Police Department nor the Tioga County Sheriff are listed as participants or pending participants in the 287(g) program as of Feb. 27

Law enforcement agencies like the Village of Spencer Police Department do not need 287(g) agreements to cooperate with ICE, but participation in the program can come with certain incentives, like special training and other resources.

‘Nobody knew who was taken’

Monteiro’s involvement in immigration enforcement actions has been a subject of debate in the village. In October 2025, the town’s board discussed a proposal that would have placed restrictions on how the tiny police force could work with ICE. The bill ultimately failed.

Under the proposed rule, Monteiro and other village officials would only be able to use local resources to aid immigration enforcement efforts if there was a “legally binding state, federal, or court mandate” in place to do so. It would not have banned cooperation with ICE altogether.

Spencer is only 20 miles south of Ithaca. Yet the two communities differ significantly in their support for the Trump Administration’s immigration crackdown. A review of the meeting minutes from the October Village Board meeting shows a slight majority of public speakers voicing support for Monteiro and ICE.

Taylor, the man who witnessed the arrests, also attended the meeting in October to speak in favor of the failed proposal. He said it quickly became contentious and at least one person had to be escorted out. Taylor said it seemed at times like attendees could hardly agree on basic facts, particularly when it came to the broader federal immigration crackdown.

“Raids in Chicago, raids in Minneapolis, you can see that on the news,” Taylor said. “There’s documentation of it, firsthand eyewitness accounts, but at the meeting, when that was being read out and the statement was given by the mayor, people were calling it lies and fabrication.”

Weeks after the contentious meeting, divisions seemed to remain high: one Spencer resident called the police because they had received a “Know Your Rights” flier printed in Spanish.

The flier, which was accompanied by a letter from a local Democratic organizer, offered advice in Spanish on what to do if stopped by ICE. The police report states that the caller reported the flier because it “was basically stating racism and […] misinformation.”

Taylor said he also doesn’t want to see Monteiro, who also serves as a School Resource Officer (SRO) at the Spencer-Van Etten Central School District, neglect his local law enforcement duties to aid a federal operation.

“Considering the funds that ICE has, there’s no reason that a village police officer who only works 16 hours a week should be dedicating their time towards it,” Taylor said. “Instead of [Monteiro] acting in his official duties at the school as the SRO, he was outside of jurisdiction babysitting a van and assisting ICE.”

After ICE agents left the scene on Feb. 11, Monteiro waited on the side of the road for at least another hour for a tow truck to remove the two vans.

Taylor said he just wants to see ICE “abiding by the laws” in their operations. However, he said he and other community members also worry about a lack of transparency and the impacts the arrest will have on family members that are left behind.

Monteiro’s incident report for the Feb. 11 raid does not mention any names, ages, genders, races or ethnicities of any of the people detained. It states that the names of involved parties were withheld “to protect privacy, ensure safety, and maintain the integrity of an ongoing investigation.”

“Nobody knew who was taken, nobody knew where they were taken, nobody knew who was left behind, how many were left behind,” Taylor said. “So when an operation like this happens, you’re creating victims that have no resources to do anything or go anywhere, no idea how to get help.”