Connecticut officials are preparing to respond to the possible mass deportation of undocumented people promised by President-elect Donald Trump.
Immigration law enforcement is the federal government’s prerogative, but his office will seek to protect Connecticut families from being separated, said state Attorney General William Tong.
“Immigrant families are Connecticut families, too. And they are our priority," Tong said.
Connecticut already had experience dealing with a federal crackdown on undocumented immigrants during Trump’s first term in office.
“There were episodes of people hiding out in churches. There were episodes of people who retreated and locked themselves behind locked doors in courthouses. It is my sincere hope that we don’t see that again. But we’ve seen this movie before and are ready for it,” Tong said.
“Our concern is that it is going to cause a lot of chaos. It is going to break families apart,” said Susan Schnitzer, president of the Connecticut Institute for Refugees and Immigrants, a nonprofit immigrant advocacy agency.
“And it is going to make immigrants susceptible to human trafficking, to other types of exploitation,” she said.
Schnitzer said CIRI plans to increase staff next year to deal with the possibility of mass deportations.
There are an estimated 113,000 undocumented immigrants in Connecticut. The state also has thousands of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) recipients.
