Protest Criticizes Dispatch For “Aiding & Abetting” ICE

by Mona Mahadevan The New Haven independent

 “Hey ICE: Do your mothers know what you’re doing? Are they proud?” reads one sign.

Lance Boos: “This is not a democracy.”

Waving “ICE Out of Connecticut” signs and chanting for justice, more than 30 people rallied outside the Hamden Police Department on Tuesday to criticize the town’s dispatch for not relaying a tip about an imminent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid to the police department.

In a press release, Hamden police clarified that the federal-government caller never mentioned ICE, and that dispatch was only told Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) would be conducting an “investigation” at an unspecified location on Dixwell Avenue.

The press release and protest at 2900 Dixwell Ave. represent the most recent fallout from the Optimo Car Wash raid in Hamden, where eight people were detained by ICE on Oct. 15. Hamden Council Member Abdul Osmanu and State Rep. Laurie Sweet attended the protest.

John Lugo, lead organizer for Unidad Latina en Acción (ULA), said he believes eight adults, six men and two women, were arrested by ICE at Optimo Car Wash as part of that Oct. 15 raid. He said that two people were released because they had already started the process to get legal status. He declined to share further details. Lugo said one person, who is still being held by ICE, has a visa as a Special Immigrant Juvenile.

The six remaining detainees are spread across detention centers in Vermont, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, said Lugo. Some of them are parents to young children, who were in school when their parents were taken; Lugo said that the kids are “fine now” but said he doesn’t know details about their home situations.

According to a press release from the Hamden Police Department that was sent out in advance of Tuesday’s protest, at 8:13 a.m. on Oct. 15, dispatch received a call from someone claiming to be a federal special agent from HSI. The caller said HSI would conduct a 15-minute investigation between 9:15 a.m. and 10 a.m. on Dixwell Avenue but declined to share an address. Dispatch was told that HSI “did not require assistance from the Hamden Police Department.”

“Notably, the Special Agent did not mention ‘ICE’ at all or refer to it during the call,” reads the statement. HSI is the division of ICE responsible for disrupting “transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) and terrorist networks that threaten or seek to exploit the customs and immigration laws of the United States,” according to ICE.

According to the town’s police department, dispatch received another call at 11:04 a.m. indicating HSI’s “investigation” had been completed.

“The Hamden Police Department completely complied with the State of Connecticut’s Trust Act,” reads the statement. “No Hamden Police Officers were present or involved in the
event. The Hamden Police Department was not provided any details and/or specifics of
the ICE operation until after the event had taken place.”

Later on Tuesday night, the press release was updated with the following: “The Hamden Police Department’s Ethics and Integrity Unit has commenced an investigation to determine all facts pertinent to this incident.”

Connecticut’s Trust Act, recently amended to provide stronger protections for migrants, primarily restricts state and local police departments from cooperating with immigration detainer requests unless ICE has a judicial warrant, the migrant is on a terrorist watch list, or the migrant has been convicted or pleaded guilty to a serious violent crime. The recent update now allows migrants to sue over violations of the law.

“Withholding info is basically working with ICE,” Lugo argued on Tuesday. He’s disappointed that the town hasn’t “educated employees” with the knowledge that many federal agencies — including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), and U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) — are working alongside ICE.

At a Hamden legislative council meeting Tuesday night, Lugo said he and other advocates planned to speak during public comment and call for disciplinary action against the dispatcher who received the call from HSI. They also planned to ask the town to provide financial support to the detainees, including by covering their legal expenses.

To address raids moving forward, the group is urging Hamden to educate its employees about their responsibilities under the Connecticut Trust Act and the city’s Welcoming City ordinance, which, among other things, limits cooperation and info-sharing between Hamden police and ICE.

New Haven, which has its own Welcoming City ordinance, does not cooperate with ICE unless compelled by law.

New Haven Public Safety Communications Director Joe Vitale, who heads up the city’s dispatch team, told the Independent, “If we receive information about any federal enforcement operations happening within the city,” ICE or not, “we notify NHPD supervisors immediately.” That protocol has not changed, even with increased enforcement activity from ICE.

Vitale said the department has not received any calls from ICE informing them about upcoming raids.

If they did receive a tip, police spokesperson Officer Christian Bruckhart said the police department wouldn’t send officers to the scene unless addressing “another public safety issue.”

“As per the city’s Welcoming City Executive Order, no city employee – including police officers – are permitted to assist ICE unless required by federal law,” wrote Bruckhart. “Nor are police officers permitted to obstruct a federal law enforcement action.”

He continued, “The NHPD continues to work collaboratively with other federal law enforcement agencies within its established policies and procedures, including the FBI, DEA and ATF to target violent criminals.”

For Lugo, that’s not enough. In an ideal world, police officers would be deployed on the scene and require ICE agents to remove their masks, provide identification, and supply a signed judicial warrant that proves their raid is based on more than racial profiling.

“They went in [at Optimo Car Wash on Oct. 15] because they saw brown people working in there,” said Lugo. ICE is “detaining people and asking questions later.”

Brian Timko, a ULA organizer, agreed, saying that not sharing information about a raid is akin to “aiding and abetting” ICE. “The police need to be held accountable,” said Timko.

According to Lugo, a coalition of migrant advocacy groups will advocate during the special session of the Connecticut General Assembly for a law that bans ICE agents from wearing masks and requires them to produce identification during enforcement actions.

Citizens witnessing a raid, said Timko, should “start interrogating the ICE agent” if they feel comfortable. They could also call the police department and say, “There’s a masked man with a gun kidnapping someone,” hopefully buying enough time for a rapid response team to arrive.

Lugo echoed that suggestion, praising Rachel, an eyewitness to the raid at Optimo Car Wash, for demanding identification from agents. “We need 200, 500, 1,000 Rachels,” said Lugo, noting that ULA offers training to people who want to learn how to “peacefully but effectively” confront ICE agents.

For Lance Boos, a middle school science teacher at Wexler-Grant, it’s most important for the city to create a “messaging system” that gives migrants the “opportunity to protect themselves.”

He decided to speak at Tuesday’s protest because of his wife, who’s an immigrant, and his students, many of whom are migrants or the children of migrants.

“They are afraid,” said Boos. And as middle schoolers, “they’re going through enough already.”

He views ICE’s actions as nothing short of “inhumane” and “unconstitutional.” Moving forward, he’s calling for Connecticut, “as a broader community,” to work together on protecting migrants, “whether we’re directly affected or not.”

Patricia Vener-Saavedra, a Green Party mayoral candidate in Hamden, said to ICE: “You better stay the fuck out of Hamden.”

Timko: Even though “people have been released [by ICE] when surrounded by citizens” in Chicago, New York, and New Jersey, “Connecticut has some sort of weird sense of complacency.”