New Haven activists, angered that East Haven cops are allegedly calling the feds to deport Latinos rounded up at traffic stops, are planning a hundreds-strong cross-border protest.
The activists’ plans mark the latest chapter in an ongoing controversy involving alleged racial profiling and harassment of Latinos by the East Haven police department.
It follows incidents in which cops allegedly rounded up Latinos in traffic stops, asked for their identification, discovered they had no proof of U.S. residency, then called federal authorities to try to have them deported.
On Tuesday night in a third-floor room at the People’s Center on Howe Street, a dozen activists gathered to prepare the march, scheduled for Aug. 15. The plans come in response to police threats of deportation that allegedly played a part in several recent arrests in East Haven.
The march is designed to pressure East Haven mayor April Capone Almon to order the police department not to ask arrestees about their immigration status, as the mayors of New Haven and Hartford have ordered.
Mayor Almon, contacted before the meeting said that she doesn’t have the power to make such an order. She claimed it would violate federal law. A march would be a mistake, given progress that her town is making in integrating its Latino community, the mayor said.
The issue of race-based police harassment in East Haven was touched off by the arrest of New Haven priest and immigrant advocate Father James Manship last February.
Manship’s arrest while documenting alleged police intimidation opened the doors to the revelation of numerous complaints by local Latinos that the cops have targeted them for threats, harassment, and even physical abuse. This led to the filing of a request for an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The events have illuminated a stark contrast between New Haven — a town which drew national attention for it’s immigrant-friendly Elm City ID Card — and neighboring East Haven — which has gained notoriety due to allegations of its anti-immigrant police practices.
East Haven police are now accused of stepping up their harassment of Latinos by calling federal immigration enforcement for deportation when they arrest Latinos who do not have proof of legal residency in the U.S.
The march is intended to put a stop to this alleged practice.
March organizer John Lugo (pictured at the center of this photo, and at the top of the story with activist Marco Castillo) said that the march is a reaction specifically to the arrest and threatened deportation of two individuals on July 13 in East Haven. One of these men, who did not want to be named or photographed for fear of reprisal, was at Tuesday’s meeting, and told his story. He is an immigrant from Mexico who has been living with his wife and two children for seven years in New Haven. He has a job delivering furniture, sometimes to East Haven.
Arrested, Almost Deported?
Here’s what happened when he was arrested, according to the man:
He was visiting My Country Store, a business in East Haven whose customers have allegedly been targeted for police harassment, on the evening of July 13. After spending a couple of hours using the store’s internet services to communicate with his family in Mexico, the man left and walked to his car. He got in and shut the door. Before he could start the engine, a police officer was at his window. He was asked to step out and place his hands on top of the car. The officer then emptied his pockets and asked him his name.
The officer went to his cruiser, came back and told the man he was under arrest. “Your plates are fraud in Connecticut,” the man said he was told. There were valid, up-to-date, Pennsylvania plates on the man’s car, he said.
The officer asked for his driver’s license. Having none, the man gave him his Mexican ID. Then the officer told the man that he would be calling immigration to deport him.
The man spent the night in jail with five other men from Mexico, who had nearly identical stories of run-ins with the officer. The next day, when he and the other men appeared before a judge, their cases were dismissed and they were set free. Immigration never came.
“The case is we don’t have licenses to drive,” the man said. “But what can I do? I have to go to work.”
On the night of his arrest, the man’s family came to the police station to post $1,000 bail. But the arresting officer allegedly refused their money, saying that immigration was on its way and the man was to be deported no matter what. “I assume he’s illegal,” the officer reportedly said. “That’s why I called immigration.”
Families of the other arrested men were reportedly in similar situations. They were reportedly hiding in the bushes outside the station, trying to get their family members bailed out while worried that immigration enforcement might show up at any moment.
The man’s experience with East Haven police on July 13, Lugo said, is representative of a larger trend in the department. “What they did that day was creating terror with those communities,” Lugo said.
Many others have had similar experiences, Lugo said, including Laticia Cortes, whose niece is awaiting deportation after being arrested in May by East Haven police during a traffic stop. Contacted by phone, Cortes said that she had recently moved from East Haven to New Haven because of constant police intimidation, including officers waiting outside her home.
“I have two kids,” she said. “My son is 6 years old. Every time he sees police he hides.”
In response to situations like this, Lugo (pictured) and others are organizing the Aug. 15 March. “We just got tired of getting so many complaints,” he said after the meeting. He said that the Department of Justice complaint brought by members of St. Rose of Lima Church is too slow-acting. “We cannot wait,” he said.
“New Haven has become a national model in the struggle for immigrant rights,” Lugo said. “East Haven is so close, we have to make it part of the struggle.”
Lugo recently met with East Haven mayor Almon, and asked her to implement a police policy of not getting involved in immigration enforcement. He said that she refused to do so. Lugo is now hoping that hundreds of marchers rallying at City Hall will convince her to act.
Mayor Almon Responds
During a phone call on earlier on Tuesday, Mayor Almon characterized her meeting with Lugo differently. “I was asked to institute a policy in East Haven where we violate federal immigration laws,” Almon said. “I have a responsibility to follow them.”
Asked about the actions of the mayors of New Haven and Hartford, who have instituted general orders that their police officers not ask detainees about their immigration status, Almon said, “How they run their cities is up to them. I won’t be giving an unlawful order.”
Advocates of the order respond that immigration is a federal issue, not a local one, and that local police are not authorized or commissioned to investigate potential violations of federal laws.
A march is a misguided idea, the mayor said. It ignores the fact that “we’ve made tremendous progress.” Almon said that she has been engaging in ongoing and fruitful discussions with members of the Latino business community in East Haven, which have “broken barriers.”
“We’re making great strides,” Almon said.
The mayor said that she recently paid a visit to the Latino-owned businesses in her town to chat and hand out flyers for a Sunday farmers market. “I was welcomed with open arms,” she said. “No one had any concerns or complaints.”
“I think that this march is really going to set this progress back,” Almon said. The progress her town is making in community-building is in danger of being derailed, she said, by a march to protest something that she ultimately doesn’t have control over. If people want to change immigration laws, she said, they should be working at the federal level.
Later, at the meeting, Lugo laughed out loud when told that Mayor Almon said that East Haven was making great progress.
“What kind of progress is it, knowing that the main issue is not being dealt with?” he asked. Giving an order to the police force to stay out of immigration matters would be within the mayor’s power, he said. “She’s not breaking federal laws. The only laws she should care about are local laws.”
“The proof is the thousands of municipalities in the U.S. that don’t get involved in immigration enforcement,” Lugo said.
Lugo speculated that the real issue is that Mayor Almon does not have “the nerve to stand up to the police.” She came to office in a very close election, he said, and she has “the old political machinery running against her.”
Where’s Father Jim?
During the meeting, someone asked about enlisting the support of Father Manship, the Fair Haven priest and outspoken immigrant advocate whose arrest brought East Haven’s police harassment allegations to light. Lugo said that the priest didn’t want to be involved.
Contacted after the meeting, Father Manship said that he hadn’t known about the meeting and that someone from St. Rose of Lima would certainly have attended if the church had been notified.
Manship did not have praise for the idea of a march. “All I can say is that the folks in the community with whom we were working several months ago all agreed that a march was not in the best interests of the community,” he said.
At the center of the planning efforts is New Haven’s Unidad Latino En Accion, a Latino advocacy group. The organization has joined with other groups in the march effort, including the ANSWER Coalition, Stop The Raids, and the American Friends Service Committee.
Organizers are still in the process of obtaining a permit for the march. The event as planned would start at noon on Aug. 15 at 287 Main St. in East Haven. The starting point — a McDonald’s restaurant — is on the New Haven town line, so that marchers can drive to the starting point without fear of being pulled over by East Haven police. The march will proceed down Main Street to finish at East Haven City Hall. Speakers for the event are not yet finalized.