by Thomas Breen The New Haven independent
A sign posted to the staff-only area of the car wash.
Back in business, with new workers, after Wednesday’s raid.
Two of the eight people who were detained by federal immigration agents during a car wash raid on Dixwell Avenue on Wednesday have reportedly been released — while New Haven’s congresswoman has sent a letter to ICE, demanding answers as to why agents acted with such force, who they arrested, and if they had a warrant.
That’s the latest two days after a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid of the Optimo Car Wash at 1126 Dixwell Ave. in Hamden on Wednesday morning.
According to local government officials and activists who denounced that raid at a presser later on Wednesday, federal immigration agents seized a total of eight people, including employees and one customer, as part of that operation.
On Friday, Unidad Latina en Acción (ULA) lead organizer John Lugo and local immigration attorney Tina Colón Williams told the Independent in separate phone interviews that two of those initially detained workers have been released by ICE.
Colón Williams said that one of those released workers was a client of hers even before the raid, and that she thinks that ICE may have released her because her client made clear during the raid that she had an attorney. Lugo said he is not sure why two have been released and the others remain in custody.
Lugo added that, in addition to the two who were released, he’s working on four other cases related to people — some from Mexico, some from Guatemala — who were detained as part of the car wash raid. He said that one of those detainees is currently being held in Vermont, and that another is missing. He said he met with a Mexican consul from Boston on Thursday in an effort to try to find where this missing detained person is located.
Colón Williams told the Independent she’s been having conversations with family members of detainees in the days since Wednesday’s raid, “helping orient people to what is going on.” From what she’s heard, Colón Williams said, the raid “was a massive display of force, and the power differential seems to have been pretty stunning,” with ICE agents “armed essentially for war. The force used seems very much disproportionate.”
“It is a very shocking thing to experience,” she said.
Meanwhile, on Friday, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro sent a letter to ICE Acting Director Todd M. Lyons on Friday about Wednesday’s raid.
Click here to read DeLauro’s letter in full.
“I am disconcerted by eyewitness accounts that some of those being detained had school-age children, and the detainees were forcibly prevented by ICE agents from communicating information that would ensure their children’s safety,” DeLauro wrote.
“I am disturbed that this raid was carried out in an unsafe and unprofessional manner that featured only minimal communication with local law enforcement and no communication with the Hamden mayor’s office.”
She wrote that, according to Hamden’s mayor’s office, ICE agents called the general Hamden police dispatch number and “gave only cursory notification to the on-duty dispatcher that a raid would be occurring. This is contrary to best practices of immigration enforcement, which should include at a minimum advance notification of Department leadership in order to ensure the safety of all parties involved in an enforcement action, including federal and local law enforcement officers. ICE’s minimal communication left local law enforcement in the dark and demonstrated a shocking lack of professionalism and respect for your fellow law enforcement agencies.” In a separate phone interview Friday, Hamden Mayor Lauren Garrett confirmed that the town’s dispatch received a call about the raid before ICE arrived at Optimo car wash. She said that dispatch did not inform the Hamden police department about the call.
DeLauro also notes in her letter to ICE’s acting director that, as of Friday, “no information has been shared by your agency regarding the individuals who were detained, including their names, and what their legal immigration status may or may not be. Based on the aforementioned lack of communication and your agency’s widely-publicized aggressive approach to immigration enforcement and detention, I am deeply concerned that the individuals apprehended in this operation may be experiencing violations of their civil rights, and that their children and families may be suffering severe harm while unable to contact their loved ones.”
DeLauro concludes her letter by asking Lyons a series of questions about Wednesday’s raid. Those questions, printed in full, are:
• What are the names of those individuals who were detained?
• What violations were cited to justify their detainment?
• Did the ICE agents have a judicial warrant for this operation? If so, what were the
charges?
• Have any charges been filed against those who have been detained, and if so what charges?
• Where are these individuals currently being held?
• Have they been allowed to contact their attorney of record (who has been provided by New Haven Legal Assistance) or family members? If not, when will they be able to do so?
An ICE spokesperson did not respond to the Independent’s requests for comment by the publication time of this article.
At the car wash itself on Friday at around 3:30 p.m., roughly six workers were busy cleaning cars.
One worker told the Independent that all of the workers on the job on Friday were brand new. Two workers declined to talk with this reporter. They said they did not have access to surveillance video of the raid. An employee at the kiosk at the adjoining gas station told the Independent on Friday that she could not provide a copy of the video surveillance footage. On Scene Media New Haven, meanwhile, appears to have obtained that footage, and has posted it on Facebook here.
While Optimo Car Wash’s workers did not talk with the Independent Friday, a letter posted to each of the doors that lead to a staff-only area indicates that ICE is not allowed on the premises without a judicial warrant. Lugo told the Independent on Friday that those “No ICE Access In This Area” letters had been posted even before Wednesday’s raid. The doors themselves don’t fully close, Lugo said, and so the signs didn’t do much good.
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