Immigrants' rights activists and their supporters gathered in New Haven Wednesday evening to speak out against violence across the country by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials.
The protest outside the federal building on Church St. was organized by Unidad Latina in Accion (ULA), a nonprofit which protects and informs immigrant families in New Haven.
The rally comes just days after an ICE agent in Biddeford, Maine, shot and killed Joan Sebastian Guerrero, a 26-year-old Colombian man, on Monday July 13.
The advocacy groups Maine Immigrants' Rights Coalition and Presente!, told PBS, Guerrero was authorized to work in the U.S. and had a social security number.
The deadly shooting happened during a vehicle stop near Guerrero’s home.
Officials with The Department of Homeland Security said the officer fired shots through Guerrero’s windshield after he tried to drive away from the vehicle stop and toward agents.
The killing has reverberated across the New England region, including in New Haven, which has faced increased federal immigration enforcement activity over the past year.
John Lugo, an organizer with Unidad Latina en Accion, repeated the names of two men killed by Immigration Customs and Enforcement agents in recent days, as the crowd blew into whistles at a rally in New Haven.
“People say we should do something about it, we should go out on the streets, and I think that's why we're here today,” Lugo said.
Lugo and others, including State Representative candidate and former New Haven alder Eli Sabin, say they want more state support for immigrants, while acknowledging the state has passed legislation allowing for residents to sue ICE agents.
“We should create a constitutional rights defense fund to protect our people and make sure that people have lawyers and support to fight for their rights and advocate and stand up against the abuses, the power and the tyranny and inhumanity of the Trump administration,” Sabin said.
Other state officials including State Rep. Patricia Dillon, who is facing off against Sabin in the primary, also criticized ICE.
“It’s like they’re playing Grand Theft Auto, like, you're human beings, and they’re going ‘pow, pow, pow,” Dillon said.
Passersby, including Oz Brown, ended up joining the rally. He works at a financial services office nearby and noticed other rallies including the No Kings Rallies in the past. Brown decided to check out the protest at the federal building.
Brown doesn’t consider himself politically active but says his support of the protest comes from a deep-seated belief in treating people equally.
I’m not a political person at all, I just want the right things to be done, for the right reasons,” Brown said. …” I want everybody to be included.”
Lugo and other advocates, reminded the crowd that several Connecticut residents, picked up by ICE, were injured during enforcement operations, or in one case, while at a federal courthouse in Hartford.
Alexander Taubes, an attorney, spoke at the rally and said one of his clients, who was granted asylum, was injured by federal law enforcement agents while at a federal courthouse in Hartford.
Yet Taubes said his client is still seeking justice, made possible by a recent Connecticut law allowing residents to sue ICE agents.
“I'm proud that my client and I were the first to file a state court lawsuit against ICE on Friday and serve that officer who tased my client, with papers,” Taubes said.
ULA officials released a statement saying immigrants are being profiled. The statement read in part…
“Instead of due process, many people face racial profiling, aggressive enforcement, and a system that appears focused on hunting down anyone perceived to be an immigrant.”
The deadly shooting in Maine was the second time an immigrant was killed by an ICE agent in just the course of one week.
On July 7, ICE agents killed 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, Texas.
ULA reports, Salgado Araujo, was a Mexican citizen who lived in the U.S. for 35 years. He was on his way to a job site in his van when ICE intercepted him and shot and killed him.
DHS officials, which oversee ICE, say the agents were searching for another person when they tried to stop Salgado Araujo’s van. DHS says Salgado Araujo drove into the ICE vehicle and that’s when the agent shot him in self defense.
Both Salgado Araujo and Guerrero were fathers, who now leave behind a family and community who are mourning their deaths.
ULA officials said in a statement…
“Even after the United States declared its 250th anniversary, Black and Brown communities continue to manage discrimination, racism, and xenophobia in their daily lives. The promise of justice and equality remains out of reach for too many. It is time to wake up.”
