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NEW HAVEN, CT — When a New Haven mother preparing to drive her kids to school was "disappeared" off the street by ski-mask-wearing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, Mayor Justin Elicker reiterated the city's commitment to "stand up for our residents and our values." On the morning of June 9 in the Hill neighborhood, Nancy Martinez and her two children, ages 13 and 8, had just gotten into their car when four separate unmarked vehicles surrounded it. At least three masked agents took her out of the car and placed her in handcuffs. The entire incident was captured on surveillance camera footage. The eldest child, her teen daughter, is seen approaching the agents who've taken her mother into custody and put her into a black SUV. In the YouTube video, the audio heard has a child's voice cry out, "Mommy, mommy!" After the incident, Elicker quickly issued a statement: "We condemn this deplorable act of family separation and call upon the Trump Administration to stop its inhumane approach and cruel tactics that are disappearing people without due process and traumatizing our children and communities." The mayor said the city "will continue to fight back with every resource available to us against the Trump Administration’s reckless immigration policies." In an interview requested by Patch, Elicker was asked to provide specific examples of the resources he spoke of and how the city is "fighting back" against Trump's mass deportation policies. Of particular note is the fact that the Martinez arrest, the most high profile of such ICE ambushes in New Haven to date, was followed just days later in a "Truth Social" post, where Trump ordered ICE to, "Do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History," targeting large Democrat-led cities. "First of all, what a world we're living in when the President of the United States has focused the full attention of law enforcement on cities that have Democrat leadership," Elicker asked. "Imagine the flip side of that. It's just a sad moment for our nation, using law enforcement as a political tool." He said that Republicans — federal and local — "not objecting to that is sad." The Trump Administration's mass deportation "architect," as described in an AP report, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, said to expect a ramp-up of arrests from 650 a day to 3,000. So what exactly is New Haven doing to protect, advise and help residents that may be impacted by ICE arrests, which would likely result in family separations? "The first big thing we've done and continue to do is to educate residents on what their rights are. We created an extensive guide, in English and Spanish, to help support people, that includes a long list of resources and legal support," Elicker, who is fluent in Spanish, said. For example, he shared, "If someone comes knocking on your door and claims to be ICE," what one should do. "The second thing is educating city staff and improving our protocols so that when, or if, there's ICE action that involves city staff — ICE tries to come into a public school, or wants to come into City Hall to make an arrest, or staff are on the street and engaging with someone and ICE shows up — the protocols that staff are supposed to follow. It's important for all city staff to understand what their legal responsibilities are, what they can and cannot do. We don't want staff to get arrested for unknowingly doing something they're not supposed to do." Another resource for the city is the courts. A lawsuit filed earlier this year against the Trump Administration was a win for New Haven. In late April, a Preliminary Injunction Order was issued by a federal judge that prevented Trump from "unlawfully withholding federal funds" from New Haven and other cities and counties "unless local governments assist the federal government with its immigration enforcement responsibilities." The lawsuit, led by San Francisco and Santa Clara County, CA, included New Haven and 13 other jurisdictions, home to nearly 10 million residents. In reference to using the courts as a means of fighting back, Elicker noted that, "It's not just us suing the Trump Administration because it's trying to cut funds for cities like us who don't proactively help ICE," he said. "There are other legal options to explore." Namely, is ICE following the law? "It's important to underscore, from a law enforcement perspective, we have limited resources. We can't stop ICE, or any other federal law enforcement, from coming into the city," he said, and added a parenthetical, "However." "Right now we are reviewing whether there are options for legal recourse," he said, referring to ICE operations, where they, as federal law enforcement agents, are disguising themselves rather than displaying that they are federal agents. "Are they, like police, following conduct rules, including identifying themselves," the mayor asked rhetorically. "ICE doesn't do that. Can we make sure federal law enforcement being held to that standard?" Police are required to ID themselves, show badges, and wear bodycams to record their actions in most U.S. police departments. In the Martinez case, Elicker said, "They did not give us a heads-up that they were going to make this arrest. Typically, federal law enforcement gives the New Haven Police Department a heads-up. There's a very clear reason for that." He used the Martinez arrest as an example. Armed ICE agents wore ski-masks, drove unmarked everyday-looking vehicles and showed no badges or credentials. "What if a police officer happened upon that while out and about patrolling. What are they supposed to do when unidentified vehicles with masked, armed individuals are detaining someone, one might say kidnapping, a woman in the street? That puts our officers in a horrible situation and the ICE agents too, frankly. And bystanders. There could be a disaster. There could be a tragic consequence for that kind of (ICE) action. To avoid a catastrophic situation, they should identify themselves." The National Defense Authorization Act of 2021 requires federal military and civilian law enforcement personnel "involved in the federal government's response to a 'civil disturbance' to wear visible identification of themselves and the name of the government entity employing them." That item is buried in the behemoth bill. A month ago, U.S. Senators Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine wrote a letter pressing ICE to follow U.S. Department of Homeland Security regulations requiring law enforcement to properly identify themselves and limit the use of "face coverings during official operations." According to the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, as it relates to immigration agents, it reads they should identify themselves. With mass deportations slated to be ramped-up from hundreds of ICE arrests a day to thousands, Patch asked Elicker how the city will respond. "The main thing we can do within our power is to prepare to support families who'll end up with family separations. In New Haven, everyone knows someone — a child's classmate, a parent, a neighbor, the person who works in the grocery store — who is undocumented. The conversations I've had with people that are undocumented? They're terrified. Their children are terrified. A lot of kids are U.S. citizens and their parents are undocumented. The main thing that we are working to do is to make sure we have a strong-enough support network should families have, on a much larger scale than the kind of incident that happened last Monday, seperations ...that we're there to support them." Elicker said that in the Martinez case, where a mother was disappeared with her two children left behind, "New Haven Public Schools really stepped up to help the children connected the family with social workers and other supports." "They did a lot of things to make sure that family had not just the resources but the emotional support, saying, 'We're here for you.'" The mayor said it's been "inspiring that a lot of different groups in the city have come together to regularly meet" on how to respond and help support families. "And make sure they have legal support. Doing that for a couple of people is easy," Elicker said. "Doing that for a lot of people is logistically more challenging." Follow New Haven Patch for continuing coverage of how deportations and other Trump Administrations are affecting New Haven residents and the City's response.
