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Sen. Chris Murphy spent Friday recycling a lurid story about Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents supposedly lurking at school bus stops in Danbury to snatch parents after children boarded, leaving 7-year-olds abandoned and “scared to death.”

The Department of Homeland Security said Murphy's claim is “a work of fiction aimed at scoring cheap political points at the expense of our officers.”

That didn't stop Murphy from posting the narrative again this morning, asking readers to “imagine a child boarding the school bus for the first day of 2nd grade” only to find dad gone that afternoon. He has been all over the airwaves with the same tale.

The specific arrest Murphy and local activists have been using as their centerpiece involved 28-year-old Ecuadoran national Leonel Geovanny Morocho-Arteaga. ICE conducted a targeted vehicle stop on Wednesday. He entered the U.S. without inspection—a federal crime—and had previously been encountered and released by Customs and Border Protection in 2021 during the Biden administration. He was alone. The stop did not occur in the vicinity of a bus stop. Officers found a large kitchen knife in the center console. DHS confirmed the child in question is under the guardianship of her mother.

Two days earlier, Murphy had already floated the same story—and more—during CT Mirror’s “In The Room” interview in Hartford. He arrived late after traveling from Danbury at the mayor’s request. He told the audience ICE’s presence was “not coincidental to the beginning of the school year” and that “if you can sort of imagine how one would design a system intended to terrorize a community—not intended to keep the community safe—you would design what they’re doing in Danbury right now.” He claimed agents waited at a bus stop until children boarded, then arrested the parents so a “little 7-year-old” would get off the bus with no one there. He called it a new “scale” of enforcement and a preview of what Connecticut cities should expect this fall. Clips of those remarks have circulated widely.

Murphy also used the Hartford appearance to dismiss the scale of illegal immigration as a “fake problem,” asserted that immigrants and illegal aliens commit crimes at lower rates than native-born Americans, and suggested communities are safer with recent arrivals. He blamed the absence of a 2024 immigration bill he supported—and claimed Trump killed it—for current conditions.

DHS noted that ICE officers are facing a 1,300 percent increase in assaults, a 3,200 percent increase in vehicular attacks, and an 8,000 percent increase in death threats. “Anybody who lays a hand on our officers or tries to obstruct them is committing a felony and a federal crime,” the department said.

On Thursday, an agent used a Taser during another Danbury arrest after the subject physically resisted, reached for a pocketknife, and refused commands. The man was carrying a counterfeit green card and a counterfeit Social Security card. He was evaluated medically as a precaution.

Another interaction between an activist bystander and an agent reveals a measured response.

Local Democrats and advocacy groups have spent the week amplifying unverified counts of 50-plus detentions, describing operations near schools, daycares, and a supermarket as deliberate “brutality” and “terror” carried out by "fascist hell brigades." Gov. Ned Lamont even issued a "Know Your Rights" toolkit for residents "regardless of their legal status" after a press conference with Danbury Mayor Alves.

Connecticut DSA went further. In a statement dated August 26, the chapter described ICE officers as “masked ICE thugs” and “fascist brutes” who “abducted over 25 of our immigrant neighbors” across Danbury, Stamford, and Bridgeport while “terrorizing the most vulnerable members of our communities.” It accused the agency of running a “campaign of terror,” referred to “ICE concentration camps,” and charged elected officials with failing to “bring to justice the murderers” of several named individuals.

The group dismissed Lamont’s posture as hollow, called the state’s Trust Act toothless, and declared that residents can only rely on each other—invoking Minneapolis walkouts and a general strike as the model—before ending with the demand: “Abolish ICE now.”

Now activists are planning multiple actions "in response" to ICE operations designed to make Danbury safer by removing people who have no legal right to be in this country.

Meanwhile, immigration enforcement is reportedly continuing in Danbury again today.

And perhaps the most revealing observation thing is the simplest one: under the posts and reports about ICE activity in Danbury this week, the comments have been overwhelmingly positive toward the enforcement—and sharply negative toward the politicians and activists selling the terror narrative.

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