Hundreds Protest ICE Arrests

The 13-year-old daughter who watched ski-masked ICE agents arrest and take away her mother stood before hundreds of protesters in downtown New Haven to offer a tear-filled appeal to consider the toll of deportations on families like hers.

“The pain you’re putting families through — I wish you would consider what you’re doing to our family,” the daughter, Monse, urged federal agents in a speech at the rally, which took place in the plaza outside the federal office building on Court Street.

The New Haven protest coincided with similar actions in cities around the country against the Trump administration’s deportation policies.

From the start of the 4 p.m. rally, speakers cited the arrest of Monse’s mother, a factory worker named Nancy, in front of Monse and her 8‑year-old brother after four unmarked ICE vehicles boxed in their car outside their Frank Street home. (Click here for an interview with the daughter and her family about what unfolded.)

Kica Matos, president of the National Immigration Law Center, called the arrest an ​“abduction” and ​“kidnapping.”

“Our message to ICE is clear: Leave our city,” Matos said.

“They will start with immigrants. They will not end with immigrants. .. They will eventually come for all of us. …When immigrants are under attack, what do we do?” Matos called out to the crowd

“Stand up! Fight back!” the crowd responded

Matos, who lives in Fair Haven, has experience organizing resistance to federal raids: as a deputy mayor in 2007, she crafted the city’s first wave of immigrant-welcoming policies that led to federal immigration raids, to which she then organized the local response.

“I need my mother back home,” Monse told the crowd.

“She’s a very special person in my life. She’s the mother who gave me life to this world, who helps me through thick and thin. She’s always working so hard to get what me and my brother want,” she said.

“I would understand if they were doing something very illegal, but in this case my mom is one of the victims.”

Teachers union President Leslie Blatteau stepped in to finish Monse’s remarks when Monse was overcome with emotion.

John Lugo of Unidad Latina en Accion (ULA), one of the protest’s organizers, also cited immigration raids this week at a Southington workplace, reflective of a White House directive to ICE agents to more aggressively round up immigrants. Lugo depicted raids like the one in Southington as racial profiling.

Shelly Altman of Jewish Voice for Peace in NHV, led a call-and-response chant, starting with statements like, ​“Come for healthcare …” ​“Come for the unhoused …” ​“Come for one of us …” In each case the crowd responded: ​“Face us all.”

The protest was convened by groups including Unidad Latina en Accion, New Haven Immigrants, CT Students for a Dream, CT Democratic Socialists of America, New Haven Federation of Teachers, Act Up CT, Party for Socialism and Liberation, First and Summerfield United Methodist Church, CT Shoreline Indivisible, the Greater New Haven Peace Council, Moral Monday, CT Climate Crisis Mobilization, CT Civil Liberties Defense Committee, and Jewish Voice for Peace.

The crowd marched in the road down Orange and Chapel Streets, ending in front of the city’s Army Recruiting station at 55 Church Street. After hearing from a few more speakers, including three veterans, they disbanded around 5:30 p.m.

Among the crowd were several students at Maloney High School in Meriden, whose classmate Kevin Rosero Moreno is currently in an ICE facility in Texas. Last week, ICE took Moreno into custody days before his high school graduation.

“Everyone deserves to have their voice heard and deserves safety,” said 18-year-old Ella Rossi (pictured below), a classmate of Moreno’s who said she’d been assigned to sit beside him at graduation.