SCOTT HARRIS: On Wednesday Sept. 2, more than a 1,000 people from across Connecticut marched to support immigrants in Danbury, the epicenter of ICE raids the last week of August in which least 64 city residents were abducted. Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus was at the march and talked to several protesters about why they had come.
MELINDA TUHUS: Thirty-five percent of Danbury residents are immigrants, likely the highest proportion of any city in Connecticut. The rally capped “A Day Without an Immigrant” in which 60 businesses closed their doors in a one-day strike. As the marchers, who ranged in age from babies to elders took to the streets, Naun Capello was marching with his wife and children.
NAUN CAPELLO: I just tried to show the governments they doing something wrong.
MELINDA TUHUS: Are you worried about your day-to-day life, that whatever your status is, ICE could come along and grab you or your wife or arrest you? Are you concerned about that?
NAUN CAPELLO: No, actually we are American citizens. But we have family, we have friends. We have the community—you know, it’s now tough.
MELINDA TUHUS: So you are not worried. You feel like you have your status.
NAUN CAPELLO: Yeah, yeah.
MELINDA TUHUS: And you have your families.
NAUN CAPELLO: Yeah, but I have family, I have friends, I have a couple of partners in my work. So they afraid what is going to happen. We don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. So they don’t want to go to work. They don’t want to go to shopping. They don’t want to do anything because now the ICE afraid everybody. So it’s tough.
MELINDA TUHUS: It’s very tough.
NAUN CAPELLO: Yeah.
MELINDA TUHUS: So then you do have friends and coworkers who aren’t going to work?
NAUN CAPELLO: Yeah.
MELINDA TUHUS: What kind of support are they getting in the community? If they can’t work, they’re not making money.
NAUN CAPELLO: Tough question. I have no idea whether they’re going to do it.
MELINDA TUHUS: What do you think this rally. It’s pretty big. It was very noisy, very loud and enthusiastic. What do you think or what do you hope this rally will do for the community?
NAUN CAPELLO: I have a lot of hopes about that. The only thing for now is they have to give any opportunity to make legal papers for everybody. They pay taxes, they work hard. They don’t come here to do something wrong. Everybody try to support family. That’s the only thing I know.
MELINDA TUHUS: Would you mind telling me what country you’re from?
NAUN CAPELLO: Originally, I’m born in my country, Ecuador, but I live in this country like 40 years already.
MELINDA TUHUS: That was Danbury resident Naun Capello. Also marching in his brown cassock was Franciscan priest, Father Mike Johnson from Hartford.
MIKE JOHNSON: I’m part of the Greater Hartford Interfaith Action Alliance and we have had prayer vigils in front of the federal courthouse. We’ve marched on the Capitol. We’ve testified in favor of the new bill and it’s clergy, all different denominations, myself from the Catholic perspective, Jewish and Muslim leaders. So I think we have in this particular issue been very united that this is what mercy looks like. This is what all of our scriptures call us to, is to welcome the stranger in the strange land. And that’s not what’s happening.
MELINDA TUHUS: That was Father Mike Johnson of the Greater Hartford Interfaith Action Alliance. At the rally, the first speaker was U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy.
SEN. CHRIS MURPHY: And let me say two more things. There are two big lies that Donald Trump and Republicans are telling you. The first one is this, that they are here to protect Danbury. Are they here to protect Danbury? When you are pulling parents away from school bus stops, when you are intentionally traumatizing kids, when you are targeting immigrants who are here legally, you aren’t here to support Danbury. You aren’t here to protect Danbury. You are here to traumatize Danbury and we are going to let them get away with that. The second big lie they say is that Americans are threatened. Our safety is threatened by immigrants being in our communities, right? Let me tell you, immigrants to this country commit crimes at a rate lower than people who were born in the United States of America. And so if you want to live in a safe community, live in a community where your neighbors are immigrants.
MELINDA TUHUS: That was Connecticut’s U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy. Another speaker was Danbury high school teacher Julian Shafer. He described the trauma immigrant children are experiencing Another speaker was Danbury high school teacher, Julian Schafer. He described the trauma immigrant children are experiencing.
JULIAN SHAFER: Let me talk to you about what’s been happening since last year, right? I’ve had conversations with our union president, Erin Daly. She teaches 8-year-olds. A student of hers had a meltdown in class one day. She calmed the kid down. She was asking, “What’s going on?” And he was angry at how unfair it was that he couldn’t go outside with his family whenever they felt—they were afraid. Erin took some time, she calmed him down and she turned around to the other students in her class. Eight other kids were crying because they felt the same way. This is one elementary school classroom.
MELINDA TUHUS: That was Danbury High School teacher Julian Schafer.
SCOTT HARRIS: That was Between the Lines’ Melinda Tuhus reporting on the Sept. 2nd march and rally protesting a recent wave of ICE raids and abductions in Danbury, Connecticut.
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