They’ve Seen This Movie Before

“Things have changed,” Father Jim Manship observed. ​“And they haven’t.”

Manship was speaking one day after President Trump announced a new order aimed at reviving mass raids of undocumented immigrants — whether or not they’re violent criminals — that has sown fear in Latino communities like New Haven’s Fair Haven neighborhood, where he leads the St. Rose of Lima church.

Manship and his congregation have seen such raids before. In 2007, federal agents swept through Fair Haven and indiscriminately rounded up 32 immigrants, 30 of them members of St. Rose.

Manship was also speaking on the same day that immigrant rights activists traveled to Hartford to speak out at a state legislative hearing against a bill that would repeal a state law allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses. That law passed in 2013 after St. Rose and the activist groups Undidad Latina en Accion and CONECT helped lead a statewide lobbying effort on its behalf.

So St. Rose has seen immigrants organize to fight back against attacks on their community, then organize to win new protections from government, now to return to the barricades. The congregation has learned from the past and is ready to face new challenges.

Joining Father Manship in making that observation was Demetrio, a Mexican immigrant who sings in the choir and is active in social-justice efforts at the 1,300-member congregation, whose members hail from 18 different countries. Manship and Demetrio made their observations during an appearance Tuesday on WNHH radio’s ​“Dateline New Haven” program. Their church, formerly a predominantly Irish-American church founded in 1907, has seen a renaissance thanks to new Spanish-speaking immigrant members.

As they gird for new raids, the pair said, they’ve been been urging congregants to develop emergency plans, but also not to interrupt their daily lives.

“The worst thing we can is to fall into fear. Fear is our enemy,” Demetrio said.

“Rather fear, let’s prepare.”

The church has conducted ​“know your rights” training with congregants, who are told to make sure they don’t open the door for people they don’t know and to request to see a signed warrant from any federal agent who wants to enter their homes. Otherwise, they’ll be consenting to a search and arrest by the act of allowing entrance.

St. Rose congregants helped lay the groundwork for a federal investigation that led to an overhaul of the East Haven police department after documented widespread harassment and violence against Latino immigrants. ​“They are my friends,” Demetrio now says of East Haven police.

St. Rose has also worked with New Haven police to build trust with immigrants and improve Spanish-speaking services.

Demetrio, who makes pizzas at a local restaurant and came to the U.S. seeking a better life at 17 years old, recalls the campaign to pass the driver’s license law. He met at the time with a state representative from Milford, Gayle Slossberg, who was undecided. He spoke to her of how a license would make life easier for his family. He also argued that ​“everyone in the state would benefit” because immigrants would be paying for license fees and insurance as well as property taxes on their cars. Also, they would have to take driver safety classes to obtain their licenses — which would make streets safer. Slossberg joined a majority of legislators in voting to pass the law.

That kind of one-on-one contact can help break through tensions in today’s newly tense political climate, Demetrio and Manship said. Get to know us, Demetrio urged listeners: ​“We are not strangers.”

Click on or download the above audio file to hear the full interview with Demetrio and Father Jim Manship on WNHH’s ​“Dateline New Haven.” The episode was made possible thanks in part to support from Yale-New Haven Hospital.