AG Tong joined New Haven Mayor Elicker, Public School Superintendent Negrón and Chief Jacobson in IRIS meeting about protecting immigrants from the incoming Trump administration

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Attorney General William Tong, Mayor Justin Elicker, New Haven Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Madeline Negrón, New Haven Chief of Police Karl Jacobson, and immigration attorneys from Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services ("IRIS") gathered in New Haven on December 5th.

They met to help "illuminate the potential federal immigration policy changes under the incoming Trump Administration" and to share local and state leadership plans to protect and support immigrants, including illegals who broke the law to come here.

"It is through collective dialogue and action that we can address the challenges ahead and continue building a welcoming and inclusive community for all," wrote Maggie Mitchell Salem, Executive Director of IRIS, about Thursday night's event.

Mayor Elicker kicked off the meeting by letting folks know that, at least in New Haven, they are all about "being kind" in the face of a "lack of kindness" in the national narrative and a "lack of compassion" by the incoming Trump administration.

He promised that city leadership "stood united" and was a "welcoming place" for everyone, including illegals, and LGBTQ+ and transgender individuals.

Elicker says he's been in weekly meetings to try to figure out how to "respond" to the Trump admin, intentionally stoking fear among those in the room.

He specifically mentioned New Haven's July 23, 2020, Executive Order affirming its status as a "Welcoming City" and then promised the city has no "duty to do the federal government's job of law enforcement."

The full Welcoming City Order (see below) promises New Haven will become a sanctuary for illegals by giving illegals a government ID, preventing police from ascertaining immigration status, restricting officials from cooperating with ICE, and more.

Being a sanctuary is so important to Elicker that he's promised to re-educate officials to make sure everyone, including illegals, can still access health care, education and other services paid for by legitimate, tax-paying residents of the state.

Equally important to Elicker is to make sure illegals "know their rights" especially if there are ICE raids, though he admitted New Haven Police cannot stop ICE from "legally conducting" its business.

The other important thing?

Spending as much federal grant money as possible before Trump comes into office in case he decides to yank funding to sanctuary cities and states.

Superintendent Negrón spoke next to reassure everyone in the room that New Haven Public Schools "shares the same values" as Mayor Elicker and the City of New Haven when it comes to being inclusive and protective of illegal immigrants.

She said she's already assembled educators to remind, or shall we say "re-educate", them of what it means to be a "Welcoming City".

"No matter what happens as educators, as educators we have to ensure that under federal and state law, we are still providing public education to all of our students. We don't ask questions when folks show up to register. We just welcome, and it's our job to educate," explained Superintendent Negrón who promised to protect students "no matter what" even if ICE shows up. She believes illegals are entitled to a free public education, full stop.

Superintendent Negrón even joked that she was "sure" there would be some help if she got into trouble by protecting illegals.

Chief Jacobson got up and promised that "everyone in the city is safe" and assured that his police department doesn't participate in round-ups or ICE raids.

Like the Superintendent, the Police Chief says he's also "retraining" his workforce on what it means to be a "Welcoming City."

"We need the consent of the community to police the community, meaning we have to police the community the way the community wants to be policed, and a large part of our community is undocumented," said the Chief.

"We need to take care of them the same way we would take care of people who are documented," continued the Chief, explaining that the only exception to that would be if an illegal committed multiple felonies and had an active warrant.

IRIS attorneys kept cautioning illegals in the room to "know your rights, know your rights, know your rights." To make that easy, IRIS publishes "know your rights" and other printable information for illegals on its website, and holds "know your rights" presentations in schools for students here illegally.

The police in New Haven actively participate on the immigrant meeting circuit, too, informing groups all across the city about their "rights" and how to protect illegals.

But when asked if the police would provide advance warnings to illegals about pending raids, Chief Jacobson seemed to get a little bit nervous.

He mentioned the new Border Czar, Tom Homan, isn't screwing around, and already threatened to throw a mayor from Colorado in jail if he were to interfere with ICE operations. That message resonated with the Chief, who seemed hesitant to cross Homan.

"We're not going to assist them, but we're not going to interfere with them either," the Chief said. "But there might be some back channels, that's all I'm saying."

The Superintendent promised to be "creative and innovative" when it comes to cooperating with ICE.

Chief Jacobson then described how health care professionals might be able to "bend HIPAA" to prevent sharing information about illegals using the health care system. "There's a lot of different avenues for hospitals to do what they need to be able to do," winked the Chief.

One attendee asked the Chief if all "illegals" are criminals.

The Chief said, "I don't think so, but I think that's what the DHS guy has been saying, 'well they're illegal, they're illegally in the country'." The Chief made it perfectly clear that he doesn't believe people who broke the law to enter the country are criminals.

The same with the IRIS attorneys who felt that illegals who broke the law to come here are simply "without status" and not criminals.

The discussion turned to potential "safe spaces" where ICE couldn't touch illegals, like inside churches and schools, but the panelists promoted more fear by suggesting that ICE could target illegals coming into and out of those perceived "safe" locations.

When asked about arresting illegals at protests, the Chief brushed it off, and remarked that out of all of the pro-immigrant and pro-Palestinian protests in New Haven this year, there's only been one arrest. He even bragged about blocking off roads to literally pave the way for protestors. "This is New Haven, we allow people to protest," he smirked.

An IRIS attorney added that IRIS would bail out the protestors.

Plus, if you use IRIS for any 'service' like that, you don't have to worry if you're illegal because IRIS doesn't retain any records on illegals and would never disclose information on any illegals who are clients. IRIS further advises illegal clients to carry a "red card" that details their "rights".

One zoom participant reportedly got booted off the call for asking a question about how New Haven Public Schools would protect the needs of American students at a time when the district absorbed 600 new, non English speaking students.

By the way, test scores in New Haven are absolutely abysmal, with only 16.7% of students meeting standards in English and just 13.3% meeting standards in math, so it seems like a legitimate question.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong joined the meeting late.

AG Tong started by sharing a story about how his own father overstayed his tourist visa and was about be deported. A last minute plea to President Nixon saved his parents, and allowed them to stay. He used this emotional story to connect with his fearful audience and gain their trust.

He quickly pivoted to Trump, "I don't even like to say his name," said AG Tong, promising to do whatever he could to protect illegals.

"The most important thing we can do right now... is keeping people safe," said AG Tong before he started fear-mongering about what Trump might do. "They're not going to take the time to split us up and make sure they only go after certain people. It's going to impact all of us," he cautioned.

What does the TRUST Act--Connecticut's sanctuary state law--actually say?

Well, AG Tong starts off by clarifying that Connecticut is a sovereign state joined by consent to the federation known as the United States of America, and that we have given "limited powers" to the federal government.

"Unfortunately in this context, we delegated broad authority over immigration to the federal government," laments AG Tong. "Just as we delegated broad authority over foreign affairs, over a standing military, because it made sense. This is something that the states can't do alone. And that's why we have a federation."

AG Tong made it clear that immigration was a federal job, and not the state's job.

So the TRUST Act basically says, "and this is not controversial," claimed AG Tong. "Federal government does its job. You cannot commandeer state resources and local police and other law enforcement officials to do immigration work. That's your problem, not ours. It does not apply to violent offenders."

AG Tong took a handful of questions from the audience.

One person wanted to know what would happen if Trump called up the National Guard to conduct mass deportations, but AG Tong declined to answer.

"I don't think it's productive to shadow box and imagine the parade of horribles that could occur," said AG Tong.

"Let me just say that if that did happen, we would be in a very ugly place as a country," he continued. "I will tell you that conversation about that possibility and so many other possibilities is happening. Nobody is just sitting down and letting it happen. We've dug into it an thought about how we would approach it."

Another person asked about Connecticut being a sanctuary state.

AG Tong immediately took offense to the use of the term "sanctuary state" and said it was important to use "precise" language that has "legal meaning" adding that "sanctuary" has no precise legal meaning.

"It is the policy of the state of Connecticut to respect, honor and protect immigrants and immigrant families," said AG Tong. "The TRUST Act stands for that proposition. And that's who we are and we should not use language that is imprecise or that frankly draws attention, unwanted attention, on communities."

A gentleman asked AG Tong about the database of illegals who hold Connecticut drivers licenses, and whether there was a risk the Trump administration could access the database to easily identify illegals.

AG Tong admitted it was a very real risk, and promised to protect people to the extent he could.

"It's hard not to get frustrated," complained AG Tong. "Sometimes to diffuse my own anger, I have to, like tell some joke or gallows humor."

"But look, America runs on Dunkin and undocumented workers," said AG Tong. "And we need to remind everybody, okay, they're coming. Right? And one of the ways we can stop them as best we can is to speak out... and to remind everybody, if you like strawberries and avocados, or hamburgers, right. Then, likely those strawberries, avocados and hamburger meat likely was packed not just by immigrant workers, but undocumented immigrant workers."

"Fifty percent. Fully half of farm workers and meat packing workers in this country are undocumented," continued AG Tong. "If you won't eat anything touched by an immigrant or undocumented workers' hand, you'll be pretty hungry."

He argued that illegal immigrants are effectively at the bottom of the economic "caste system" of the country, and the fastest way to destroy the country would be to deport illegals. "You take 100,000 people out of Connecticut's work force, good luck. We're toast," argued AG Tong before telling an odd story about how hard it is to find a restaurant in Connecticut that doesn't have an illegal washing dishes. "Believe me, I know."

"We depend on them," said AG Tong of illegals. "We can't live without each other."

He goes on to describe one of the biggest threats on the minds of Mayors, First Selectmen, the Governor and of course himself.

"On top of the threat of round ups, and targeting people and detention and deportation is huge cuts to federal funding as a way to punish us and force us into submission," complains AG Tong. "I can only tell you that there is a ton of conversation and planning about those contingencies right now."

Several times AG Tong mentioned working on plans with other blue state AGs, like Letitia James, though he didn't elaborate on what they might be planning.

"There's not enough money and the money we do have now is at risk," said the Attorney General, using his closing remarks to stoke fear among the audience one last time.

Perhaps there would be "enough money" for Connecticut if the state stopped giving handouts to illegals.

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