On Thursday, Oct. 1st, a Connecticut law takes effect that limits civil arrests at schools, hospitals, houses of worship and other places the state designates as protected areas. Gov. Ned Lamont signed it in May, months before a four-day federal dragnet operation rocked southern Connecticut. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement claims that the raids led to the arrest of 118 people.

Five weeks later, Connecticut has rules for the next encounter but no full public account of the last one. Advocates have pressed state and local officials for answers, and U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy has asked the Department of Homeland Security for arrest totals by town and details about arrests near children.

What Changes Oct 1

Public Act 26-14 names schools and child care programs, hospitals and urgent care centers, houses of worship, cemeteries, social-service centers and disaster-response facilities as protected areas.

Section 7 generally bars a peace officer from detaining, arresting or taking someone into custody for a civil offense in a protected area, or in a state or municipal facility, unless the officer is acting in an official capacity and the person is the subject of a judicial warrant. Criminal arrests fall outside the provision’s definition of a civil offense.

The act also creates a state civil remedy for certain violations and restricts how license-plate-reader data may be used for immigration enforcement.

A judicial warrant is issued by a judge or magistrate after judicial review. An administrative immigration warrant is issued within the executive branch. The state Office of Early Childhood recommends, as a best practice, that child care operators adopt a written policy for visits by immigration agents.

The law does not stop ICE from operating in Connecticut. It sets conditions, under state law, for civil arrests in the places it names, and federal officials dispute whether Connecticut can impose some of those conditions on federal agents.

A Lawsuit Aimed Elsewhere

Republican lawmakers opposed the act, arguing that Connecticut cannot direct how federal agents do their jobs. The U.S. Justice Department later sued the state over Sections 3 through 6, which address face coverings, identification and the use of force. A court has heard arguments on a federal request for a preliminary injunction and on Connecticut’s motion to dismiss; no ruling had been reported as of late September.

The complaint does not challenge Section 7, the protected-areas provision.

What Danbury Saw

In Danbury, reporters and local officials documented arrests at Kennedy Park, on streets and at businesses, including places where day laborers wait for work. Activity was also reported near a child care site and a school-bus stop.

Danbury Mayor Roberto Alves told a crowd at Kennedy Park that the city was seeing “racial profiling” and “random people being picked up off the streets,” CT Mirror reported Aug 26. ICE later described the operation as targeted.

Rapid-response volunteers worked to identify people who had been detained, alert relatives and connect families with lawyers. News accounts from Danbury described parents afraid to walk their children to school or wait at bus stops, workers who stopped going to jobs and families whose main earner had been taken into custody.

No arrest count has been established for the lower Naugatuck Valley, but the law still has a local consequence: Valley schools, hospitals and houses of worship need to know who will receive an enforcement request and when staff should call a lawyer.

The Response

More than 1,000 people joined a Danbury protest at the end of a Day Without an Immigrant action, according to Connecticut Public, and more than 60 businesses closed for the day. The governor’s office published statewide guidance on residents’ rights and said it was coordinating legal and community resources.

Speakers included U.S. Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal; the Rev. Tony Lorenzen, minister of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Danbury; Danbury High School teacher Julian Schafer; Rob Baril, president of 1199, the health care workers union; the Rev. Sierra-Marie Gerfao; and Luis, who described being detained while shopping with his wife and young son before being transferred out of state and returned to Connecticut.

It was also announced onstage that Gov. Ned Lamont would speak. However, Lamont never addressed the crowd. Afterward, Sound Valley Current asked an organizer about his absence; the organizer said the protest had started later than expected and Lamont had to leave.

Murphy echoed the school-bus-stop concerns that federal officials disputed. “When you are pulling parents away from school bus stops, when you are intentionally traumatizing kids, when you are targeting immigrants who are here legally, you aren’t here to support Danbury,” he said. “You aren’t here to protect Danbury. You are here to traumatize Danbury, and we aren’t going to let them get away with that.”

Baril turned from the scale of the protest to the case of one union member. “I’m thinking of one of our members, Simone, whose son, as we speak, is hundreds of miles away from Connecticut, sleeping on a concrete floor, being denied access to medication that could save his life,” he said.

Murphy asked DHS for the location of each Connecticut arrest, the criminal and immigration information for each person arrested, whether officers followed the agency’s policy for arrests and detention involving parents and legal guardians, details about arrests near children and an accounting of force shown in public videos.

No comprehensive public record yet shows who was arrested, where or under what circumstances.

Preparing for an Encounter

• The state Office of Early Childhood recommends, as a best practice, that child care operators adopt a written policy for visits by immigration agents.
• People with questions about their own status should consult a qualified immigration lawyer or recognized nonprofit legal provider. General know-your-rights material cannot decide an individual case.
• Danbury Rapid Response Networks can be reached through the hotline # (475)237-7351 or by texting Danbury 30403