A Little League baseball coach in New York City took action when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents approached his Little League players during practice.
“I heard them saying, ‘Where are you from?, where are your parents from?’ said Youman Wilder, the founder of Harlem Baseball Hitting Academy, during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Deadline White House.”
Wilder said he told the agents, “This is very inappropriate to ask these kids anything. I’m just going to have them implement their Fifth Amendment right and not say anything to you.”
Wilder told host Nicolle Wallace he was disappointed that bystanders didn’t do anything to protect the children during the incident. He called the bystanders “cowards.”
“I just said to myself, ‘I’m willing to die to make sure you get home,'” he told CNN.
“I never in my life thought this was gonna happen on the Upper West Side in New York City,” he said.
Wilder’s youth baseball program has helped over 400 kids get into college. 45 of his players went on to play in the Major Leagues.
But since the incident, Wilder says attendance at his baseball practice has dropped off. He said the children and their families are afraid they’ll be deported.
“We usually carry, during the summer, between 11 and 15 kids, and we’re having one kid show up at practice right now,” he said.
