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Connecticut’s new “protected areas” law took effect Thursday, and the people who backed it spent the day in Hartford celebrating with the advocacy groups that lobbied for it.
CT Students for a Dream, which organizes in part to protect illegal aliens, brought community groups, faith leaders, labor unions, and elected officials together as Public Act 26-14 went live. The group called the law “a victory won by organizing and building power together,” and said the goal is that “every immigrant family can safely access health care, education, and essential services.”
What the statute actually says is narrower, and more aggressive, than that. Beginning October 1, officers — including federal immigration agents — generally cannot detain or arrest someone for a civil immigration violation in schools, hospitals, houses of worship, courthouses, school bus stops, shelters, playgrounds, and a list of other sites unless they have a judicial warrant. The bill, passed largely on party lines and signed by Gov. Ned Lamont in May, also restricts masks on officers and limits automated license-plate readers.
State Sen. Matt Lesser, D-Middletown, told the room that federal agents “don’t belong” in schools, houses of worship, courthouses, or health care facilities, and that enforcement near those sites “helps nothing.” He said communities will be less safe as Temporary Protected Status ends. He put the number losing state health coverage at about 3,200 people he described as lawful refugees, asylum recipients, Ukrainians, and trafficking survivors, and blamed “the man who used the resources of the federal government to try to protect Jeffrey Epstein.” Lesser was talking about President Trump, whom he also called “lawless.” Sen. Gary Winfield, a lead backer of the underlying bill, did not attend.
State Rep. Hubert Delany, D-Stamford, followed. He said undocumented people are afraid and should not be — not in church, not in a clinic, not at school. He praised the protected-areas rules and the license-plate restrictions, said he was upset that ending TPS for Haitians was an attack on “humanity and dignity,” and argued Connecticut can decide for itself how to protect “the rights of all immigrants” in the state.
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy closed the political argument. A day after he went to the Senate floor to push a bill ending ICE enforcement at school bus stops, he told the Hartford gathering that cutting off health care was “morally repugnant,” promised no money for ICE, and said that if Democrats take the House and Senate their first move will be to reverse Trump’s immigration policies and the related cuts.
The same day the new arrest limits took effect, state-administered Medicaid coverage ended for approximately 3,200 refugees, asylum seekers, and trafficking victims due to the expiration of a federal funding mandate. Lesser treated that as federal cruelty. Critics argue it is contradictory for local officials to condemn the loss of federal safety net support while simultaneously instructing state courts and police to restrict the federal officers charged with enforcing immigration law.
Public Act 26-14 does not legalize illegal presence. It makes the places illegal aliens use every day harder for ICE to enter without a judge’s warrant, and it does so at the request of the same advocates who say those aliens should be able to move freely through schools, churches, and hospitals without fear of arrest.
By raising these legal barriers, the state has essentially turned everyday public spaces into safe zones where even criminal illegal aliens can theoretically avoid federal detection.
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Growing insurrection. Our representatives no longer represent we the [taxpayers] people. Their unreal world is stunning.