A plan that would have had the police force in Port Chester working closely with Immigration and Customs Enforcement was rejected Wednesday.

Village board members announced they would not seek the application for a federal grant to subsidize the salary of three new police officers.

If accepted, the police department would have been required to provide information to ICE.

The village's police chief says he would rather have residents feel comfortable reporting crime to local officers than fear deportation. The stipulation in the federal grant deterred the department from applying in the past. "We decided against it simply because of the strings attached," says Port Chester Police Chief Richard Conway. "We have a significant segment of our population that is undocumented, and if we have a situation where those people are afraid to report crimes and afraid to assist the police, it's a big problem all around." 

Many at the meeting applauded the decision. "We are here as immigrants, but also families that grow in Port Chester, that have businesses in Port Chester, that work very hard every day to bring bread to our table to our families. Thank you for this situation. I'm very happy to hear you are not going to apply, thank you very much," says Port Chester resident Louis Yulma.