—By Dominic Rapini, American Businessman and Political Commentator
Here’s a question for every Connecticut taxpayer to chew on over their morning coffee: When did the rights of illegal immigrants—some of whom have been convicted of serious crimes—become more important than your right to feel safe walking your kid to school or sitting on your front porch?
It’s a question our state’s Democratic supermajority seems entirely uninterested in answering. And that should infuriate you.
Connecticut now ranks fifth in the country for declining ICE detainer requests—right behind California, Illinois, and other states that seem to think enforcing immigration law is optional. Between 2020 and 2024, we declined more than 1,150 federal requests to detain convicted criminals. That’s 1,150 chances we had to protect our communities, and we chose not to.
You’d think this would be the moment when Connecticut’s leaders—flush with power, given their supermajority—might step up and act like grown-ups. You’d be wrong.
Instead, Attorney General William Tong has taken it upon himself to moonlight as the state’s head of the #Resistance, turning his office into a political war room. His latest target? Not drug traffickers, not gangs, not violent offenders. Nope. He’s decided that Avelo Airlines, a budget carrier just trying to operate within federal law, is the real villain here.
Avelo’s crime? Agreeing to a business decision to fly deportation flights on behalf of ICE. In response, Tong penned a scathing letter packed with loaded questions and moral outrage, demanding to know if Avelo would dare transport people in handcuffs or—gasp—without a valid “removal order.” (Because if they’re being deported without the proper paperwork, that’s the part we should be mad about.)
Here’s a thought: maybe the real atrocity isn’t Avelo’s compliance with federal law. Perhaps it’s our own government’s refusal to do its job.
Tong’s letter reads like a parody. If he’s this outraged about air travel logistics, what’s his plan? Put these criminals on a Greyhound? Call them a Lyft to El Salvador? Does he think ICE should send them home with a gift card and a note that says, “Sorry for the inconvenience”?
While Tong is grandstanding and the legislature is busy earning us top marks in cost of living and bottom marks in economic growth, violent offenders are being quietly released back into our neighborhoods. So again, I ask: Who exactly is our government working for?
We need to stop pretending this is normal. It’s not. No functioning society decides the best use of its power is to protect lawbreakers while ignoring the rights of law-abiding citizens. We’ve effectively created sanctuary cities that act like open invitations for criminal migrants to slip through the cracks and land back on our streets—often with tragic results.
Let’s not sugarcoat this: the Democrats own this mess. They have the majority, the governor’s mansion, and the moral high ground they like to claim—but they’re not using any of that to make Connecticut safer. If anything, they’re sprinting in the opposite direction.
So here’s a final question, and it’s the one that matters most: What are we, the people of Connecticut, going to do about it?
Call your state representative. Call your senator. Show up. Speak up. Demand that the people in charge start prioritizing the citizens who pay the taxes raise the families and follow the laws—not the ones breaking them.
Donald Trump may have won a national mandate with the simple promise that America comes first. In Connecticut, we demand something just as fundamental: that citizens come first.
And maybe Attorney General William Tong should get on an airplane himself, enjoy the friendly skies he’s so concerned about, and fly down to Washington, D.C., to meet with Attorney General Pam Bondi and ICE Director Thomas Homan. He might just learn what it truly means to be a top law enforcement official: someone who enforces the law, defends the public, and doesn’t confuse grandstanding with governance.