Immigrant advocates continued to report sightings of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials mainly across Fairfield County as of Friday morning, following a weeklong clampdown that resulted in the detention of at least 100 people, according to immigrant organizations.
“It almost feels like a natural disaster has occurred,” said Tabitha Sookdeo, the executive director of the youth-led organization Connecticut Students for a Dream (C4D).
C4D oversees an initiative called the Connecticut Immigrant Support Network which coordinates a statewide network of organizations working with immigrant communities.
Sookdeo said the network had confirmed 94 detentions as of Thursday evening across Bridgeport, Danbury, Hamden, Hartford, Redding, and Stamford.
Danbury was the hardest hit with 64 detentions, followed by Bridgeport at 11 and Stamford at eight.
The American Immigrant Legal Clinic, an initiative by the Immigrant Support Network, has offered legal support to those in need, with at least 60 intakes this week alone as of Friday morning, Sookdeo said.
“It's been phone call after phone call, email after email, and trying to sit and be fully present with people who have lost their loved one,” Sookdeo said. “They haven't died, and it kind of feels like it in some way because having that uncertainty of whether or not you might see your loved one again is terrifying.”
Attorneys with the clinic have seen significantly more people at locations such as the Abraham A. Ribicoff Federal Building in Hartford. Based on that, Sookdeo said the estimated number of detained community members could be closer to over 370.
In tracking those who have been detained, Sookdeo said they’ve found people have been transferred as far out as Colorado.
“I didn't think that we could handle this level of work, which we can't really, but we're doing our best,” she said.
An ‘increase in the tempo’ of ICE activity
Kenneth Gray, a professor of practice in criminal justice at the University of New Haven, and a retired FBI special agent, said the ICE activity this past week is not exclusive to Connecticut.
“We are seeing an increase in the tempo of ICE activities across the entire United States,” Gray said. “I would expect to see this increased tempo to continue throughout the rest of the year.”
One of the concerns raised this week is the fact that it was the start of school for many students across Connecticut. Gray said it’s possible that federal enforcement officers may consider these factors given their ramped up operations.
“You take advantage of any situation that you can that will help you find undocumented aliens like that, and consequently, something like the beginning of school may provide that type of opportunity,” Gray said. “But as to whether or not that was a specific tactic that was being used, I don't know.”
ICE officials declined to comment on the ongoing operations citing security concerns.
Local and state officials have asked activists to keep a safe distance from ICE officers as they continue their work. Even though the law allows protest and filming of ICE agents at work, Gary advised caution to avoid a possible arrest.
“Actually trying to block ICE vehicles, trying to interfere with their attempts to arrest someone, those are very dangerous steps to take,” he said.
‘A politics in which those people are welcome’
Oscar is a member of Stamford Norwalk United with Immigrants (SNUI), a grassroots immigrant-led coalition. He’s requested to be identified by first name only for his safety. Oscar said it’s been an ‘exhausting week.’
“There's been ebbs and flows in how active ICE is in Stamford and Norwalk over the past couple years. There's never been anything like this,” he said. “It's a scale of things we've never seen before here.”
Oscar said the tactics have changed. Traditionally, ICE raids were focused on locating a particular individual, but recently, they’ve had a more broad-based presence in neighborhoods, he said.
“Perhaps the ICE agents have a list of people they're looking to detain, but there have been a lot of people who have been taken collaterally,” he said, “including some people who have been briefly detained who have papers.”
Many activists have also noted how ICE activity has morphed into something more aggressive.
“Government agents tackling someone and taking them down in the street is always shocking,” Oscar said. “I can't get used to that.”
Given the unprecedented scale of ICE activity this week, Oscar said he’s urging citizens to help.
“This is being done with your tax dollars by your government in your name,” he said. “What are you going to do about that?”
Oscar emphasized unity.
“In a week like this, where we're working early in the morning and late at night to try to protect our neighbors, it's easy to get caught up in that, but the goal needs to be a politics in which those people are welcome, fully protected, and loved,” Oscar said. “We can't lose sight of that.”
Learn more
The Connecticut Immigrant Support Network (CISN) has a hub for immigrant resources in Connecticut that provides information for immigrant families, organizations, schools, and elected officials.
Additional resources can be found through Connecticut Public’s Immigrant Resource Guide.
