ULA Rallies Against ICE Surge

by Brandon Cortes

ULA founding member John Jairo Lugo (center) leads Wednesday’s event.

In response to a recent statewide surge in federal immigration enforcement, roughly 70 people rallied outside City Hall on Wednesday evening to demand that ICE leave Connecticut.

The rally was organized by the City of New Haven Peace Commission and Unidad Latina en Acción (ULA).

It took place on the same night that nearly 2,000 people marched in Danbury, which has become the center of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity in the state.

“Today we are here in solidarity and we are doing a parallel act to what’s going on in Danbury, which is now suffering from ICE raids, but it’s an attack the whole country is suffering,” said John Jairo Lugo, a founding member of ULA. “More than 100 people were being detained, and I feel that it’s time for the people in Connecticut to rise up and do something.”

In his remarks, Lugo laid out a set of demands aimed at Hartford. Chief among them: a $50 million state fund for immigrant legal defense and family protection.

“We are not asking for charity,” Lugo said. “We’re demanding an investment in the families that for decades have helped build Connecticut’s economy.”

He said the fund should pay for lawyers and legal representation in immigration proceedings, assistance for families who lose a primary provider, help with rent, protections against eviction, and psychological support for families affected by detentions and deportations.

Lugo also called for a moratorium on license-plate readers and surveillance cameras, pointing to the risk that locally collected data could be shared with federal agencies and used in immigration investigations, a direct response to Mayor Justin Elicker’s push for more police and traffic cameras in New Haven.

“A community that’s afraid to drive his own car, afraid to go to work, afraid to take his children to school, and afraid to call the police is not a free community,” Lugo said.

He questioned Connecticut’s reputation as a sanctuary state, noting that Gov. Ned Lamont brought former Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton into his administration, first as commissioner of revenue services and later as a senior infrastructure advisor. Lugo said Boughton, as mayor, entered into a 287(g) partnership allowing local police to participate in federal immigration enforcement, and pointed to the “Danbury 11” case, which he said ended in a $400,000 settlement following allegations of racial profiling.

“A sanctuary for whom?” Lugo asked.

Manuel Camacho, chairman of the City of New Haven Peace Commission, told the crowd that ICE enforcement activity has hit Danbury, Bridgeport, and other communities across the state.

“Dozens have been taken, and behind every number is a person: a mother, a father, a son or daughter, a worker, a neighbor,” Camacho said.

He said the government has the authority to enforce its laws, but that authority carries obligations.

“The existence of governmental authority does not eliminate the responsibility to exercise that authority with restraint, transparency, and respect for human dignity,” he said, arguing that when residents are afraid to report crimes or send their children to school, “our entire community becomes less safe.”

Roberto Ortiz, a longtime ULA member and retired family-practice doctor, described his own path: a first job at an Italian restaurant in West Haven, work as an addiction counselor, a move to Texas, and a return to New Haven.

“We are not delinquents. We are not rapists. We are not violent people,” Ortiz said. “We are people that have contributed to this country the best way possible.”

“We didn’t come here for a handout. That is a total lie. We pay taxes and we work,” he said.

As attendees arrived, organizers handed out surgical masks in a gesture of solidarity with immigrants facing deportation and a nod to protecting the identities of those at risk.

Activist and musician Frank Panzarella led the crowd in song, turning “Hit the Road, Jack,” into “Hit the road, ICE.” Paula Panzarella followed with a reading from Abril López’s collection Nos están desapareciendo — “We are being disappeared” — written in response to what immigrant communities in Southern California experienced last summer. The poem she read, “The American Dream,” describes a day laborer waiting outside a Home Depot who ends up face-down on the concrete, hands zip-tied.

Other speakers included Henry Lowendorf of the Greater New Haven Peace Council and Jim Pandaru of Veterans for Peace, who told the crowd that “no human being is illegal.” and that “this is a country founded by immigrants. We are all descendants of immigrants; the only true Americans are the native Americans.”

Among those in the crowd on Wednesday was Veronica Perez, who has lived in New Haven and Connecticut for 20 years.

“I came here to support our immigrant brothers and sisters and to see what can be done about this situation,” Perez said. “This past year immigration enforcement has gotten worse. Recently they deported a coworker of mine because of all this. ICE took her.”

Andrew Conroe, who has lived in New Haven about nine years, said he came out of “horror at what’s going on in our communities and wanting to stand up for people who are under threat.”

Speaking after the rally, Lugo said ULA has been organizing in New Haven for 25 years, beginning with a campaign for driver’s licenses for undocumented residents that stalled in the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001. The group of roughly 20 to 30 people who had been meeting decided to stay together.

Today, he said, ULA accompanies people to court, maintains safety protocols, and runs training — aimed largely at U.S. citizens willing to help — on how to respond when immigration agents appear in a neighborhood. The strategy, he said, depends on numbers.

“If there are 10 agents, we can bring 200 people,” Lugo said, describing an approach meant not to confront agents but to make detentions harder to carry out.

ULA members and attendees gathering together in front of City Hall to protest against ICE.