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NEW HAVEN, Conn.—More than 1000 immigrants and
supporters marched down the main avenue in the mostly Latino neighborhood
of Fair Haven on June 16 to protest a sweep there by Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE). It was the crowning event in two weeks of
raids and protests that comprised by far the largest and most combative
response by an immigrant community to an ICE raid in Connecticut.
ICE struck at Fair Haven a mere two days after the New
Haven board of aldermen had voted 25-1 to distribute municipal ID cards
to all residents, including the undocumented—a program that is the first
of its kind in the U.S.
The ID card was a political gesture of goodwill that
contrasted to the dehumanizing terms of the Senate debate. By granting
undocumented workers full access to city services at such a sensitive
time, the city drew the ire of the far right, inciting CNN’s Lou Dobbs to
label New Haven Mayor John DeStefano a “law-flouter.”
Lou Dobbs notwithstanding, the benefits of the ID
program to immigrant workers are mostly symbolic. It grants them a valid
form of identification within city limits and enables cardholders to open
bank accounts and pay parking meters.
Critics have raised concern that the city’s collecting
of personal data from immigrants, including their home addresses, would
leave them more vulnerable to ICE attacks.
ICE stormed the Fair Haven neighborhood 36 hours after
the city vote and hauled away 29 workers, transporting them to prisons in
Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Maine.
DeStefano charged ICE agents with violating the civil
liberties of city residents. He called for ICE to suspend activities in
New Haven, “at least until an investigation of last week’s actions has
concluded.”
The largest Catholic church in Fair Haven, St. Rose of
Lima, held a prayer service on the night after the raid. The Senate
immigration bill appeared to have died that afternoon. Five hundred
people attended the mass, with another 200 congregating outside the
church in support.
When the mass concluded, the groups converged for an
outdoor rally on the church steps. While clergy and city hall reps
occupied the speakers’ platform, activists leafleted the crowd to
publicize a mass meeting that 20 immigrant workers attended the next day,
and out of which would come the call for a mass mobilization on Saturday,
June 16.
Four days later, ICE returned to raid workplaces in
New Haven, West Haven, and North Haven, arresting four.
The New Haven detainees shuffled into a Hartford
courtroom on June 14, shackled at the wrists and ankles for their public
hearing. Forty local supporters staged a moving picket line in front of
the courthouse in solidarity. The judge sent the detainees back to jail
with bonds of $15,000. The amount was later reduced to $1500.
The mass mobilization through a driving rainstorm in
Fair Haven was larger than this year’s May Day action in that city. UNITE
HERE bused hundreds of members to the event from New York and Boston.
They joined union contingents of clerical and maintenance workers from
Yale University, health-care workers from SEIU 1199, janitors from SEIU
Local 32BJ, and hundreds of immigrant workers, students, and other
supporters from around the state. John Wilhelm, president of the
hospitality division of UNITE HERE, spoke at the rally.
The Fair Haven march reinvigorated activists who have
opposed previous raids elsewhere in the state. More importantly, it
inspired a new layer of immigrants and young people to join in struggle.
A week later, a new group of activists who had attended the march rallied
before Hartford City Hall to protest an ICE raid in that city.
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