Immigration and refugee resettlement agencies in Bridgeport are bracing for President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to deport undocumented immigrants and end birthright citizenship during his second term. While most have not yet felt the impact of the Nov. 5 election, for those at the Connecticut Institute for Refugees and Immigrants, the fallout was immediate, flooding their offices with questions.
“We are talking about the proposed rupture of families in Connecticut that we are gravely concerned about,” said Chris Altrock, senior manager of corporate and foundation relations.
An estimated 113,000 undocumented immigrants reside in the state. According to the institute and Connecticut Voices for Children, one out of every four children in Connecticut live with an immigrant parent; an estimated 38,000 children live with at least one undocumented immigrant. Of the institute’s clientele, 30% are children.
The institute is a statewide nonprofit that aims to help refugees and immigrants overcome legal, economic and social obstacles through education and legal aid in order to lawfully and comfortably adapt to their new home. Since the election, staff has been focused on providing families with legal aid and moving the citizenship process along. Staff is also having discussions with families and planning for the possibility that they may be separated from their children.
“There are a lot of families where one or both of the parents do not have permanent status and the kids do,” said Susan Schnitzer, president and CEO. “So there are conversations around ‘What if mom or dad or grandma are detained or deported? Who is going to care for the children?’ Those are really tough conversations that people do have to have.”
Schnitzer said Trump’s “blunt, ambiguous” rhetoric around immigration is contributing to the sense of confusion and fear among the immigrant community.
“There are a lot of threats that are making people very nervous,” said Schnitzer.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong at a press conference on the steps of the state Capitol in November said the state is prepared to protect its immigrant community under the TRUST Act, a law passed in 2013 and strengthened in 2019, that prohibits state and local law enforcement from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) seeking to detain and deport undocumented immigrants without a valid federal judicial.
Easton state Rep. Anne Hughes was at Tong’s press conference in November where she and lawmakers vowed to protect immigrant communities from Trump’s deportation agenda. Hughes recalled during Trump’s first term when immigrants in Bridgeport were rounded up, detained by ICE and shipped off to detention centers.
“We’ve seen the dress rehearsal which was bad, we’ve seen the playbook which is worse,” said Hughes. “We need to be loud and defiant and be prepared to protect our communities.”
Hughes also said the state needs to prepare for Trump’s administration to withhold federal funds for programs such as Medicaid and the Husky health insurance program that serve poor communities.
Senator Tony Hwang, a first generation immigrant from China, also doesn’t support Trump’s plan for mass deportation or ending birthright citizenship, which he said is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and doubts Trump will find legislative support for it.
“Immigrants are an integral part of our society, the foundation of our country,” Hwang said. “There are multiple rationales that lead people to leave their homeland to come to the United States. I just think mass deportation is too broad of a reach.”
Yet, organizations like the Burroughs Community Center, a primary partner of the institute, are fearful for the future and well-being of their clients and for refugees trying to legally enter the country. The center has worked with those seeking asylum from conflict zones and humanitarian crises.
“It’s the folks who are seeking asylum, who are up in the air, and who are maybe mid-process that you just don’t know what’s going to happen either way,” said Therese LeFever, program manager at the Burroughs Center. “Fear, anxiety, and chaos sort of reigns. But for the people who are not here, we saw what happened in his last administration where the numbers just dropped dramatically for who was allowed to come.”
For Schnitzer it seems unthinkable that we as a nation would send people back into a war-torn country.
“We are not sure what is going to happen, we just don’t have experience, or at least modern day experience,” she said.
Additionally, Altrock called Trumps’ proposed mass deportation plans impractical from an economic standpoint.
“Taking out the humanitarian aspect, this is far more complicated,” said Altrock. “Twenty percent of the workforce in Connecticut are immigrants, so from a practical perspective, you are talking about decimating businesses and other organizations.”
