Christopher Peak Photo
Cross student Tayshalee Hernandez leads chants at Friday’s rally.
Which is the real threat to the public? An 18-year-old undocumented immigrant, known throughout his high school as a “bright student,” who was pulled over for driving erratically? Or the ICE agents who were waiting “to stalk and kidnap him” at his next his court date?
Vanesa Suarez, an organizer with the Connecticut Immigrant Rights Alliance (CIRA), said that a federal judge had given the wrong answers to those questions.
She was one of hundreds of people at a defiant rally Friday evening on the steps of City Hall to demand the release of a New Haven teen who’s being held for deportation by immigration authorities.
The teen, Mario Aguilar Castañon, crossed the border illegally two years ago, fleeing a violent local gang in Guatemala that he’d refused to join, that had beaten and threatened him.
At Wilbur Cross High School, where he is now in his junior year, he’s known as an “exceptional student” who was “fully engaged in the educational process,” Principal Edith Johnson said. He worked over 30 hours a week while keeping up with his studies.
His Spanish teacher, Mary Perez Estrada, said he is “so inquisitive.” Castañon told Estrada he wants to be a scientist, she said.
Over the summer, West Haven cops charged Castañon with driving under the influence without a license in an unregistered and uninsured car. His lawyers say he denies the charges.
When Castañon planned to go before a Milford judge in September to deal with the charges, U.S. Immigration and Customs and Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested him and shipped him to a detention facility in Massachusetts.
“Today, our school community is suffering,” Johnson said. “He is missing from our classrooms, from our hallways, from our cafeteria. Wilbur Cross is simply not the same without him.”
Attorney Dalia Fuleihan.
Castañon is now facing removal proceedings, and the judge won’t let him return to New Haven for any amount of bond while the case is pending.
His attorney, Dalia Fuleihan, from New Haven Legal Assistance Association (NHLAA), said that the judge ignored over 300 letters of support for his release.
CIRA’s Vanesa Suarez.
“I ask you to think of who is profiting in keeping Mario — and other immigrant folks — in detention? And who is hurting?” Suarez asked. “Too many mothers have been taken. Too many fathers have been taken. And yes, even our youth has been taken. We stand here today denouncing this ongoing violence happening in our community.”
Kica Matos.
The rally calling for Castañon’s release was organized by local immigrant rights advocate Kica Matos, along with a host of local organizations including CIRA, the Connecticut Bail Fund and Unidad Latina en Acción.
But the most prominent group at the rally was the students and staff from Wilbur Cross High School. Hundreds circled around them as they shook picket signs printed with Mario’s face and chanted, “Up, up with liberation! Down, down with deportation!”
Principal Edith Johnson.
Principal Johnson said that Wilbur Cross had been serving immigrant kids since its founding in 1946. She said that the school’s diversity has always been a “point of pride.” Only now, she added, it’s also a liability.
“Mario was hundreds of miles away from his family, from his home. He got stability at school and security within this community, until he was taken from us,” Johnson said. “Throughout my years as an educator, I’ve lost too many children to community violence, tragic accidents, medical conditions and significant trauma that keeps our students out of school — and now, another terrifying variable certain to take students off course, with ICE arrests.”
“Many of our children in this society have seen the worst of humanity before they even step into high school,” Johnson went on. “I cry for Mario’s mom, because she allowed her son to make this dangerous journey for a better life. Where is she now? I imagine that she took solace in [his] decision to journey and come here because she had strong enough faith in the promise of the American dream, the promise that my parents came here and gave me, the promise that I give to my children.”
Stephanie Pacuar.
The younger organizers — including some of Mario’s classmates — called for radical changes, especially to the way America polices itself. Just a few years back, politicians were calling on Congress to create a “path to citizenship,” but on Friday, students said that wouldn’t be enough.
They said undocumented immigrants shouldn’t lose their personhood just by breaking a law. They cheered for #AbolishICE. And they said that Connecticut’s cops and prosecutors were just as culpable as the feds for “constant criminalization.”
Stephanie Paucar, Castañon’s classmate and part of Cross in Action, a student civil rights group, said Castañon is “a regular teenage boy who came to follow the American dream, who came to this country to find freedom.” She said that shouldn’t be taken away from him.
“We live in a country where families are being broken apart, where kids and adults are being traumatized. If only you took the time to even know the stories why people come here, perhaps you would understand,” Paucar said. “We shouldn’t have to leave home every day wondering if our loved ones might be detained. As the child of immigrants, I fear all the time about what if my parents would be detained.”
“ICE should not be allowed in our communities,” she went on. “We can’t keep letting them break families apart. We can’t keep letting them take away our rights. And we certainly can’t let them dehumanize people just because they’re not American-born.”
Sen. Gary Winfield.
With tears coming down his face, State Sen. Gary Winfield, who worked to revise the Trust Act to protect Connecticut’s undocumented immigrants from being deported, said he felt something had gone deeply “wrong” in this country to allow kids to be locked up in custody.
He said he was joining in the calls, along with the students, to #AbolishICE.
“I am asking you that, when we get this young man back, don’t think that justice is done. That’s only one part of this fight,” Winfield said. “I want to be very clear about this, because most in my position won’t say this: What that young lady said, ‘#AbolishICE,’ that’s exactly what we should do. ICE was created to do exactly what we see happening now. When we get that young man back, that is one step. But the next real step is to make that happen.”
Just as they’d begun the rally, Wilbur Cross students led the crowd in a round of chants. “What’s outrageous? Kids in cages!” they yelled. “No justice, no peace! We want Mario released!”
Teacher Mary Perez Estrada with her students.