by Thomas Breen
Robert Menefee leans up close to record the purported ICE agent.
Activists on alert on the courthouse steps.
“ICE! Attention! ICE agent! Cuidado! La migra!” a local immigrant rights activist named Leslie shouted across Elm Street as fellow advocates blew their whistles in the direction of a man parked in a tinted-window black Dodge Charger at the corner of Temple Street.
Leslie — who declined to share her last name or be photographed for this article — showed up at around 10:30 a.m. as part of a “rapid response” team of local activists keeping an eye out for federal immigration agents in New Haven.
One such alert made the rounds of social media and text threads Monday morning.
“Heads up, community: CONFIRMED & VERIFIED,” reads a post put up by the group New Haven Immigrants on Facebook at 10:41 a.m. “An ICE agent was seen in a vehicle near the Main Branch Library in New Haven (Elm & Temple). He is wearing a vest that says “ICE” and is using binoculars. Please take care and look out for one another.”
So Lesley and others turned out to observe — and warn others.
City police spokesperson Officer Christian Bruckhart told the Independent Monday morning that he was not aware of any Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) presence in New Haven this morning. ICE and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) representatives did not respond to a request for comment by the publication time of this article.
“No human being is illegal,” one masked rapid-response activist told the Independent when asked why he showed up to Temple and Elm Monday morning to blow his whistle at the Dodge Charger. (He asked to remain anonymous for this story, though he agreed to be photographed with his mask on.)
Local videographer Robert Menefee leaned right up close to the vehicle’s front windshield as he recorded the man in the driver’s seat. Menefee said he was there Monday as part of a “rapid response” team associated with Unidad Latina en Acción.
“I respect the rights of the Constitution,” Menefee said when asked why he was there. “People have the right to go to court without being terrorized,” regardless of their immigration status. Menefee was referring to how ICE officers have been showing up to the state courthouse at 121 Elm St. with more and more frequency as of late to make arrests of people who show up for hearings in criminal cases unrelated to their immigration status. Activists warn that this practice of courthouse immigration enforcement will only deter immigrants from reporting crimes to the police and from following the process and showing up to hearings.
The man in the parked car declined to roll down his window or get out of the car and answer questions from this reporter.
Leslie said that the man was wearing a vest, sitting in the car — which was “parked illegally” near the Temple-Elm intersection — and was using binoculars and and video-recording activists. She and Menefee said that the purported agent had not gotten out of the car during their time observing.
At 10:59 a.m., the man in the Dodge Charger drove off down Elm Street — past a group of mostly masked fellow rapid-responders standing on the courthouse steps.
One of those on the courthouse steps was New Haven Rising leader Rev. Scott Marks. Marks said he got a tip from a trusted source of his Monday that ICE was by the courthouse, so he decided to show up and stand with fellow immigrant rights activist.
“I feel like we’re days away from Minneapolis here in New Haven,” he said as he worried about what the current deployment of thousands of federal agents in the Twin Cities — and the resulting chaos, protests, arrests, and shooting deaths of American citizens — might mean for the Elm City.
Showing up in solidarity with fellow immigrant rights activists for outings like Mondays, he said, lets off the message: “Let’s net allow it to happen here.”
Marks: Watching out so New Haven doesn’t become Minneapolis.
The car in question.