ICE Operation in Connecticut Highlights How Arrests Are Rising Even in Blue States

Federal immigration authorities have detained dozens of people in the city of Danbury, Connecticut, this week, despite intense opposition from elected officials and protesters.

The Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign is plowing ahead even in Democratic-led states like Connecticut that have laws seeking to limit Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s power. Nationwide, ICE arrests increased significantly in June and July, according to newly released data.

ICE officers, some wearing masks, have detained people outside Danbury apartment buildings, during traffic stops, in parks, near an elementary school, and outside a daycare center, according to the mayor and local activists tracking the operation that began Monday.

Agents detained one father who walked his child to a bus stop shortly after the school bus drove off, said Clementina Lunar, an advocate with the group Danbury Unites for Immigrants. Her group said that, as of Wednesday evening, more than 50 arrests had ripped apart 40 families, and many others were hiding in fear.

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Nearly one-third of the city’s 90,000 people are Hispanic or Latino, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and slightly more were born in another country.

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Local, state and federal representatives from Connecticut held a news conference Wednesday to denounce ICE’s operation, which they said was traumatizing some young students just as they are returning to public schools.

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In Danbury, protesters have had tense confrontations with ICE officers, who responded at least once with pepper spray, according to activists.

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