Despite freezing temperatures, a protest decrying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the New Haven Green drew around more than 100 demonstrators including over 20 University students.
Organized by a coalition of 32 New Haven organizations and Yale University clubs, the protest was one of four across Connecticut scheduled for Friday, Jan. 23 in solidarity with Minnesotans protesting escalated violence by federal law enforcement officers as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration.
The event followed the fatal Wednesday, Jan. 7 shooting of Renée Nicole Good, a 37-year-old writer, and preceded a second fatal shooting on Saturday, Jan. 24 of a 37-year-old intensive care nurse, Alex Pretti, in downtown Minneapolis.
For the last two weeks, Minnesota residents have flooded the streets to protest Good’s killing and the deployment of two thousand federal agents to Minneapolis and St. Paul as part of Operation Metro Surge, which Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has called a “federal invasion of the Twin Cities.” Many Minnesotans called for a statewide economic blackout on Jan. 23, prompting residents to boycott schools and shopping centers for the day and leading to the closure of hundreds of businesses in solidarity.
Trent Page, a sophomore at Yale, is a member of one of the organizing groups, Yale Democratic Socialists. From Minnestora, Page was struck by the disconnect between the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis and the relative security of life in New Haven within Yale’s campus.
“It just feels bizarre, because it feels like, at least for me, like the world is falling apart around you, almost,” Page said. “I’m really trying to help people see the power in their privilege and [to] break out of that and actually use their voices to be able to call out some of the objective, the terrible things that were happening.”
The contributions of Black and Brown Minnesotans, especially members of the Somali community, to the resistance of ICE and support of protestors inspired Page’s involvement in local organizing.
“That’s what my city is all about,” Page said. “That’s what community is all about. That’s what this nation can be at its peak.”
Special Collections Cataloging Librarian Pax Crowley, who has previously been involved with local activism in both Middletown and New Haven, was one of the demonstrators present at the Green.
“I’m here as a member of, I would hope, a core heart of the American populace who thinks that government’s job, police’s job, society’s job is to care for and better the situations of all people, regardless of who they are, why they’re here, where they are, and to protect us from harm, not to harm us,” Crowley said.
Crowley noted that she hoped the protest would be seen as “an act of love” for the Connecticut community, as opposed to the negative framing of anti-ICE protests promoted by President Trump, who referred to protestors as “paid agitators and insurrectionists” during a Tuesday, Jan. 20 press conference.
Two student clubs, the Wesleyan United Student/Labor Action Coalition and the University chapter of Sunrise Movement, sent members to the Green. The protest was the first time Gabby Hoefner ’29, a member of the environmental advocacy club Sunrise Movement, had attended a protest unrelated to environmental activism. The extensive coverage of federal agents’ actions and methods, which have drawn scrutiny online, motivated Hoefner to attend.
“I have seen a lot of videos on social media of things that ICE is doing, for example, the killing of Renee Good and people putting out a memorial for her with candles,” Hoefner said. “I saw a video of ICE agents arresting people who were protesting, and I was like, how are you such an asshole? And I recently saw something about a five-year-old boy being arrested, and it was just so overtly inhumane that I was like, how is this happening?”
The killing of Good has intensified fear among Minnesotans and immigrants nationwide. For Yale senior Michelle Lee, who works with the Connecticut Institute for Refugees and Immigrants, advocating for international students was imperative given that many of them were unwilling to attend similar events out of fear of retribution.
“I’ve just had strong ties to working with immigrant and refugee communities throughout my life,” Lee said, referring to her involvement with the protest as “a very sort of personal choice.”
Before Friday’s action, New Haveners participated in a nationwide “ICE Out for Good” campaign, hosting a protest on the Green on Sunday, Jan. 11. Friday’s event drew many of the same attendees, including Katherine Hinds of the Connecticut Visibility Brigade, a group that has regular meetings to protest the policy of the Trump administration on local highway overpasses.
Hinds, who leads the first Connecticut chapter of the Brigade and has been arrested twice for her overpass activism, described the actions of federal agents in Minnesota as “horrifying.”
“We come off the bridges anytime a rally is held, because it’s actually a good anchor for a protest like this,” Hinds said. “It’s actually like therapy for us, because we’re so upset about what’s happening in our country. We’re just like ambassadors for the resistance. And we keep coming back.”
Members from various advocacy groups like New Haven Immigrants Coalition, Artists Against Apartheid, New Haven Rising, and the New Haven Federation of Teachers spoke to the crowd throughout the rally. Some speakers led chants, including “Fuck ICE,” and “The people united will never be defeated,” which prompted demonstrators to link arms. Attendees carried a series of banners that read slogans denouncing Trump, calling for justice for Good, and advocating for the defunding of ICE.
Earlier on Jan. 23, representatives for New Haven signed onto an amicus brief calling ICE’s actions “unconstitutional” and supporting Minnesota’s legal challenge against the federal government, calling for the court to place a restraining order on the Department of Homeland Security. The request was rejected on Monday. “National Shutdown” walkouts and boycotts are planned for Friday across the state in further protest of ICE deployment and the killing of Pretti.
Three New Haven residents have been arrested by ICE since Thursday, Jan. 1.
Finn Feldman contributed to reporting.
Aarushi Bahadur can be reached at abahadur@wesleyan.edu.
Leave a Reply