Be Thankful if You Aren’t Living in Fear of Having Your Home Raided at 5 in the Morning

In response to recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, there will be a public meeting tomorrow night at St. Augustine’s Church in Hartford. Luis Cotto reports that a resolution will be brought before the City Council tonight.

Statewide Public Meeting to Oppose the ICE Raids in Hartford

Tuesday, Nov. 27, 7:30 p.m.

St. Augustine’s Church (in the church basement), 10 Campfield Ave., Hartford

Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 21 Hartford residents from the Brazilian neighborhood of Parkville over the first two weeks in November. Its agents barged into people’s homes before sunrise and dragged them away. They
surrounded a local buffet restaurant and arrested its employees. They crossed the street and raided a car mechanic’s garage. They have made Parkville into a ghost-town. Merchants have no customers. Stores close early. Restaurants are
empty. Residents keep to their homes in fear of the next ICE attack. Some have fled the city.

There was a time when an ICE raid of this magnitude was considered out of the question in a city like Hartford. Now the question is how soon will there be another?

Please join concerned residents of Hartford, New Haven, Danbury and elsewhere to plan a protest to turn up the heat on ICE and alert immigrant communities that they are not alone.

For more information, call Frank O’Gorman of CT People of Faith at 860-841-5006 or Kate Prendergast of Stop the Raids! Trinity College at 610-209-9264.

This meeting is endorsed by the Stop the Raids! Trinity College, American Friends Service Committee of Connecticut, CT People of Faith, National Lawyers Guild – CT Chapter, The Campaign to Stop the ICE Raids in Danbury, and Queers
Without Borders. More endorsers are forthcoming.

It’s all too easy to buy into the myth that if you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about. Even if you believe that people who are “illegally” living in this country should be sent away, the reality is that legal immigrants and children of illegal immigrants are also subjected to these raids.

The news media do not hesitate to report on how traumatizing it is to experience a home invasion, but they say little about the traumatizing home invasions that are planned and executed by ICE agents.