A predominantly Latino crowd of 1,300 in Durham, North Carolina, was told by the police chief Sunday night that “checkpoints in the city … have been directed to cease and desist,” though questions remain as to whether local law enforcement is working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The event at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church was organized by Durham Congregations Associations and Neighborhoods (Durham CAN) after a checkpoint near a local public school stoked fears in the immigrant community. Chief of Police Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis told attendees that the checkpoints, set up while the Trump administration instructs immigration officials to deport undocumented people for almost any reason, would come to an end.

The event was promoted as a “public dialogue with public officials,” but little public dialogue took place.

City officials—including Davis, Major Paul Martin of the Durham County Sheriff’s Office, Durham Public Schools Superintendent Bert L’Homme, and city council members—were given questions in advance. Officials could only respond with “yes” or “no” answers. Afterwards they were allowed to read a prepared statement regarding their departments’ commitment to refugee and immigrant communities.

Advocates who spoke to Rewire said they were disappointed in the event. No one identified as an undocumented person from Latin America was asked to speak during opening remarks, and attendees, who were largely from immigrant and refugee communities, weren’t allowed to voice their concerns or ask public officials questions. No one unaffiliated with an organization or agency spoke at the event.

Ivan Kohar Parra, an organizer with Durham CAN, told Rewire that the event took shape based on discussions among the organization’s members in which a “collective agenda” was agreed upon, and that “hundreds of leaders participate in constructing that agenda.”

Despite working to be a “city of inclusion,” Durham-based organizers told Rewire that affected communities are “almost never” consulted about the policies that affect their communities.

Viridiana Martinez, co-founder of Alerta Migratoria, a North Carolina-based grassroots organization that advocates for undocumented people, said there is no way to hold public officials accountable for what they say publicly versus what their agencies do privately. This is especially true, she said, when it comes to Durham’s participation in the federal immigration enforcement program called Secure Communities.

Secure Communities gives ICE “a technological, not physical, presence in prisons and jails,” according to the American Immigration Council. Unlike the 287(g) program, “no local law-enforcement agents are deputized to enforce immigration laws through Secure Communities,” the American Immigration Council reported in 2011.

Rather, Secure Communities is designed to identify immigrants in U.S. jails who are deportable under immigration law by requiring local law enforcement agencies to submit to a federal database biometric information—including fingerprints—from anyone they arrested. ICE then submits detainers—written requests—requiring local law enforcement to hold those who are undocumented until they are picked up for deportation. Secure Communities was active from 2008 to 2014, when it was replaced by the Priority Enforcement Program, which is essentially the same program. As of September 30, 2011, Secure Communities had lead to 142,000 deportations.

During Sunday’s gathering at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, Martin handed out a flyer called “A Guide For Our Immigrant Neighbors.” The flyer claimed the sheriff’s office does not actively search for undocumented people; does not have “a partnership, collaboration, or agreement with ICE”; does not participate in the 287(g) program; and does not participate in Secure Communities. When Martin was asked in front of 1,300 people if his agency participates in Secure Communities, he said no.

But in February, after the checkpoint near Durham’s School for Creative Studies, the sheriff’s office public information officer told Rewire in an email that “the Sheriff’s Office participates in Secure Communities. The agency uses that term even though there may be other immigration programs that go by another name.”

Gibbs outlined how the agency participates: “A deputy is only required to determine the person’s immigration status only if a person is arrested on a felony or an impaired driving offense (boating included.) Typically, the Sheriff’s Office is only made aware of a person’s status if they are processed at the detention facility. During the booking process, fingerprints are checked to determine whether a person has other outstanding criminal charges. The Sheriff’s Office does not have the ability to opt in or to opt out of the state’s fingerprint database. The state coordinates the database.”

The Durham County Detention Facility—the local jail—faxes fingerprints to ICE, Gibbs told Rewire in February. If ICE issues an immigration detainer, the undocumented person will remain in custody until their case is adjudicated. Once any county or state charges have been adjudicated, ICE is notified by the arresting agency. There’s a 48-hour deadline, including holidays and weekends, for ICE to take custody of the undocumented immigrant. If ICE does not arrive within 48 hours, the person is released, Gibbs explained.

When asked after the Sunday event to clarify to what extent the sheriff’s office participates in Secure Communities, Gibbs told Rewire in an email that “there’s no conspiracy or collusion, just a miscommunication within the agency.”

“When the Sheriff’s Office receives an inquiry that goes beyond my general knowledge, I seek the appropriate people who are available at the time to get answers. The staff member who referred to our process as Secure Communities was mistaken,” Gibbs wrote. “Some members of the agency were using the outdated program name like a colloquial expression. The agency recognized this, and corrected itself to avoid further confusion.”

Rewire asked Gibbs if the information she provided in February was still correct: that the Durham County Detention Facility facilitates phone calls between ICE and undocumented people in custody and that the facility sends “flagged information” to ICE and honors ICE detainer requests. “The process we’ve shared is the information I’ve been provided by the agency,” Gibbs said, adding that the legal advisor to the sheriff’s office reviewed the process and determined “that the agency has never actively participated in either Secure Communities or the Priority Enforcement Program.”

However, as Rewire has reported, there is evidence that Durham has long assisted ICE in immigration enforcement. Durham received 1,167 detainer requests from 2010 to 2016, according to TRAC Immigration, which tracks immigration detainer requests by state. In 484 of those instances, ICE assumed custody of an undocumented person who had been arrested by local law enforcement.

Wendy Jacobs, the chair of the Durham County Commissioner, told undocumented families at Sunday’s event not to be afraid of seeking out social services. City funds, she said, could be used to obtain what their children need.

Jacobs, who was unclear on the specifics of Secure Communities, told Rewire that she too had been given conflicting information regarding the sheriff’s office’s participation in the program, but that she was hoping to meet with the sheriff for clarification.

Throughout Sunday’s event, Martinez and fellow Alerta Migratoria member Sandro Mendoza yelled “liar!” and “mentira!”—the Spanish word for liar—from the back of the church as public officials spoke.  When a church leader discussed workshops and immigration clinics being offered to the public, Martinez repeatedly yelled “sanctuary church,” though the church leader did not offer to make Immaculate Conception Catholic Church a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants.

No public officials acknowledged Martinez and Mendoza’s comments. When an older man attempted to shush Mendoza after he yelled, “I’m a victim of checkpoints,” Mendoza responded, “I’m doing this for us, I’m doing this for my mom.”

Mendoza shared with Rewire that his mom is afraid to drive his two young sisters to and from school in Durham because of area checkpoints and immigration sweeps in February that led to the detainment of 84 undocumented immigrants in North Carolina.

One organizer told Rewire that events like this are about “feeling good” rather than holding public officials accountable for harming undocumented communities. “No one promised not to work with ICE, nothing concrete was offered, but you have church leaders and authority figures saying everything’s going to be OK and our people believe it. The reality is different,” she said.

Martinez walked out of the Durham CAN event visibly upset. “I can’t believe they lied in a church.”