'I'm Heading to Danbury,' Says US Senator as ICE Arrests Parents at School Bus Stops
“ICE is not here to protect Danbury,” Sen. Chris Murphy said. “ICE is here to put Danbury into a state of terror.”
National, state, and local Democratic officials joined activists in Danbury, Connecticut on Wednesday to demand accountability for the dozens of immigrants—some of them reportedly in the country legally—detained in recent days by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, including parents who were seized while seeing their children off to school.
“This morning in Danbury, ICE was arresting parents at school bus stops,” US Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said in a social media post. He alleged that agents waited until children had boarded buses, potentially leaving them to return home from school without their parents.
“I’m heading to Danbury,” he said. Murphy joined other Connecticut Democrats, including Gov. Ned Lamont, US Rep. Jahana Hayes, Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz, and Danbury Mayor Roberto Alves, as well as immigrant rights advocates at Kennedy Park to condemn the Trump administration's deadly and xenophobic crackdown.
“ICE is not here to protect Danbury,” Murphy told the crowd in the Fairfield County city of 86,000 residents—around 35% of whom are foreign-born immigrants. “ICE is here to put Danbury into a state of terror.”
“Congress should not authorize a single additional dollar for ICE while this illegality continues,” the senator added.
Hayes said, “What I would hate to see is a snowball effect where a parent is detained, and then a child goes into state custody because there's no one to pick them up."
Alves said that nearly 50 community members have been detained this week that he knows of, but warned that the actual number of arrests is likely higher.
"ICE has increased enforcement and stepped up its tactics with an intentional brutality you have all seen," the mayor told the crowd in the park. "The operations coincided with the start of school here in Danbury."
“We’re here because mothers, fathers, workers, and longtime community members are being swept up, with no rhyme or reason, not as part of a targeted campaign of folks who have committed serious crimes," he continued. "We’re seeing racial profiling, random people being picked up off the streets."
“ICE is pulling people after they put their kids on the school bus," Alves said. "Operations in front of a daycare, where 3- to 5-year-olds are looking out the window asking what’s going on. An operation on the first day of school at our second-most-populated, highly diverse elementary school in Danbury as students are being dropped off by parents and school buses."
"This isn’t a coincidence; this is intentional,” he stressed, adding that he received reports of legal residents being detained.
“So when we hear folks say, ‘Oh, we want people to do it the right way,’ the folks doing it the right way are also getting deported," he added. "We can’t stand for that anymore."
Juan Fonseca Tapia, a Mexican immigrant and co-founder of the advocacy group Danbury Unites for Immigrants (DUFI), broke down while recounting what he said he saw during the blitz, including one person getting pepper-sprayed and another taken to the hospital after being struck by an ICE vehicle.
“They were taking people everywhere. They hurt them. They were bleeding," he said. "I saw the chains they put on them—not handcuffs, literal chains.”
DUFI volunteer Clementina Lunar described a father being arrested while putting his child on a school bus.
“When he handed the child to the bus helper, ICE came and took him,” she said.
Lunar added that Danbury residents are mobilizing to help each other and monitor school bus stops.
“There is fear," she said, "but there is also a lot of resilience and resistance."
