Demand Grows: ICE Out Of CT

ICE deportation police have been active in Connecticut, abducting children and parents from the street in unmarked vehicles. The communities where they live are calling for ICE to get out.

In Meriden, Kevin, age 15, was detained just before his graduation and flown to Texas. His family and classmates responded to the horror by organizing a walk in solidarity with him.

In New Haven a mother taking her two children to school was forcibly removed from her car and taken away leaving her children in panic. At a rally at the Federal Building later that week her daughter courageously spoke. “I need my mother,” she said, flanked by Kica Matos, president of the National Immigration Law Center and Leslie Blatteau, president of the New Haven Federation of Teachers. Mayor Justin Elicker shared his outrage, thinking about his own children of the same age and pledging New Haven will always remain a welcoming city.

In Southington four workers were snatched away from their job at a carwash and arrested. At that moment in Hartford union and immigrant organizations were holding an emergency rally at the State Capitol. It was one of dozens held around the country called by Service Employees International Union demanding the release of their California president David Huerta who was arrested while observing an ICE raid of his workers in Los Angeles. Huerta was released later that day and now faces federal charges of interference.

The rally at the New Haven Federal Building was joined by 150 community leaders, immigrant rights organizations, and allies to denounce this wave of unjust detentions, as well as to oppose attacks on social activists and the growing criminalization of social protest and migrant communities across the United States.

The crowd chanted along with Kica Matos, “We are a city of immigrants. ICE stay out of our city.”

Demands included: An end to ICE raids and the military’s involvement in immigration enforcement; Accountability for all agencies and officials; Protection for the right to protest; ICE out of CT; End Deportations NOW!