Just days after they spoke out against alleged racial profiling of Latinos in East Haven, Luis Rodriguez and city priest Father James Manship discovered frightening flyers at their doorsteps.
A white supremacist group hand-delivered flyers Saturday night to Latino businesses in East Haven and at St. Rose of Lima, Manship’s church in New Haven.
The flyers warn of an “invasion” of undocumented immigrants that will turn the United States into “a third-world slum.” Some of the flyers feature a picture of a soldier holding a rifle.
“This makes me very nervous,” said Rodriguez (pictured), an Ecuadorian immigrant who owns Los Amigos Grocery in East Haven. He and his wife now fear for their safety.
Rodriguez was one of four Ecuadorian business owners who spoke out last week against what they claim is long-standing police harassment against Latinos in East Haven. They went public with their complaints after their priest, Manship, was arrested while videotaping an instance of alleged police harassment inside one of the Ecuadorian stores. News of his Feb. 19 arrest broke last Tuesday this Independent story, sparking a heated race relations debate. After a press conference Wednesday following Manship’s arraignment in court, the conflict was widely publicized.
The news apparently attracted the attention of a Mass.-based hate group, whose messengers showed up on Saturday.
Rodriguez said that a large white van pulled up to his East Haven grocery store on Saturday night. Men in army fatigues got out and deposited an armload of individually wrapped flyers to his doorstep.
The organization behind the message, according to the flyers, is a group called North East White Pride (NEWP), based in Haverhill, Mass. The group couldn’t be reached for comment.
No such fliers have ever appeared at the businesses prior to last week, Rodriguez said. The delivery appears to be triggered by the news of Manship’s arrest and the allegations of racial profiling.
The flyers were also deposited at St. Rose of Lima Church in Fair Haven, where Manship (pictured) serves as the priest. As the head of a parish with a growing population of newcomers from Latin America, Manship has been an outspoken advocate for Ecuadorians and other immigrants.
The fliers again put Manship’s parishioners in the crosshairs of anti-immigrant fervor. When they marched to City Hall to support the city’s immigrant-friendly municipal ID two years ago, parishioners and immigrant advocates were met by suburban hecklers with megaphones. Tensions heightened after a round of immigration raids shortly thereafter, and New Haven found itself in the spotlight of a national debate on immigration.
Anti-immigrant groups had been quiet in the area lately, until last week.
NEWP’s flyers state that illegal immigrants are taking jobs away from American citizens, costing the government billions of dollars in social services, and carrying diseases like whooping cough, tuberculosis, polio, and hepatitis. “They send their children to school without immunization and expose your children to this. They work in restaurants and expose you as well,” says one flyer.
“Immigration or INVASION?” reads one flyer. “They come for welfare or to take our jobs and bring with them drugs, crime and disease.”
“Wake up America! We are being attacked!” warns another.
Illegal immigrants are causing a rise in crime, the flyers say, as gang members move into the U.S. from Latin America. “The shocking crimes committed by these illegal gangsters include organized crimes such as theft of prescription drugs from pharmacies, black market gun sales, assaults against police officers and witnesses, assassinations, and human trafficking.”
The flyers call for the deportation of all illegal immigrants.
A YouTube video promoting NEWP connects the organization to Stormfront, a white supremacist, neo-Nazi group. The video also quotes deceased white nationalist David Lane, a member of the Ku Klux Klan and head of a white supremacist group called The Order, which was accused of murder, racketeering, bomb-making, car hijacking, counterfeiting, and trying to overthrow the government.
“It’s quite obvious that this is a hate group, a white supremacist group in the classic sense of the term,” said Kenneth Brown, a New Haven-based activist and expert on hate groups. “[NEWP] wants to stir up hate not only against immigrant groups but against blacks as well.”
Their goals are fear and intimidation, Manship said. Between 60 and 100 NEWP flyers were deposited at St Rose and at the parish house next door on Saturday night, according to the priest. Manship said that a car with Connecticut plates pulled up around 7:30 p.m. and dropped off the flyers, wrapped in packets of three in orange bags, like newspapers being delivered.
“It makes folks get nervous and fearful,” Manship said.
Elizabeth Leon, working behind the counter at Los Amigos Grocery in East Haven Tuesday morning, said that she was in the store when the flyers were dropped off outside on Saturday night. The flyers were also delivered to houses in East Haven and to all the Latino-owned businesses, she said.
At 7:30 p.m., she saw a white van with tinted windows pull up across the street from the store. Men in army fatigues and hats got out and deposited the flyers — in orange bags — in front of the store. Later, Leon said, one of the men entered the store, walked around, and purchased two lemons, exchanging a few words in Spanish with Leon. His purchase was just an excuse, Leon said. The man just wanted to make sure that the flyers had been received.
“I was a little afraid,” Leon said, “Because he was a tall man, and very serious.” Leon’s husband, storeowner Luis Rodriguez, estimated that the man was in his 20s.
“This makes me very nervous,” Rodriguez said. He and his wife are worried that the men might try to set their business on fire. Given the harassment that Rodriguez feels he’s receiving from the East Haven police, he said that he wouldn’t want to contact the police even if he did have a problem.
“I want the Americans to know that of all the Latinos in East Haven, 90 percent of us are educated and hardworking,” Rodriguez said. “Don’t confuse us with bad people. Try visiting the stores and seeing the reality. There is nothing bad here.”
Rodriguez said that police harassment has increased since the news broke of Manship’s arrest. He said that he witnessed five cars pulled over by police in front of his store within two hours on Sunday night.
East Haven police have denied all allegations of police harassment.