Author: admin

IRIS To Shutter Main Office

By Laura Glesby, March 5, New Haven Independent

New Haven’s flagship refugee resettlement agency is closing its main doors at 235 Nicoll St. and shifting to remote work and satellite locations after losing millions of dollars in federal funding.

Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS) has occupied the Nicoll Street office since 2006, where it has provided case management, education, job training, legal support, and health assistance to many hundreds of refugees and immigrants over decades.

In an email on Wednesday afternoon, Executive Director Maggie Mitchell Salem announced that due to funding slashes under President Donald Trump’s administration, the organization will cease operating from its East Rock home base by the end of March, with official plans to leave by April 30.

She told the Independent the organization is also “in the process of winding down our Hartford office.”

Mitchell Salem said in a phone interview that IRIS has so far laid off about half of its staff members since the start of the Trump administration. Now IRIS has a full-time staff of 45 employees.

IRIS will continue operating education programs out of the United Church on the Green’s Parish House at 323 Temple St., as well as its food pantry at 75 Hamilton St.

[To view the article in its entirety, please go to https://bit.ly/4bVJtXw]

West River Peace Garden Gets Ready to Bloom!

by Paula Panzarella, West River Peace Garden

Spring is here! And the West River Peace Garden will soon be blossoming with a wide assortment of colorful native flowers, thanks to the work of the crew and Urban Resources Initiative, who, starting April 18, will be there every Friday from 9:30-11:30 a.m. We encourage all to come help beautify this wonderful entrance-way into New Haven, bounded by Legion Avenue, Ella Grasso Boulevard, and Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard/North Frontage Road.

One of the Peace Gardens’ most significant plantings is a ginkgo tree from Hiroshima, Japan. The tree is from a cutting from a ginkgo that survived the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima.

Volunteers are always appreciated and needed to help weed, plant, mulch and water. Starting April 18, feel free to come by Fridays at 9:30 a.m. and join us for an hour or two. There is a large curb cut at the corner of Ella Grasso Boulevard and Legion Avenue where you can drive to the garden.

For more information, please contact Aaron Goode at aaron.goode@gmail.com, or phone 203-507-8985.

Please visit the website at https://westriverpeacegarden.org.

Hundreds Protest On (Not My) President’s Day

By Laura Glesby, Feb 17, New Haven Independent

Holding up a pink triangle sign — which in another time and place might have marked them for death — Patricio seized a moment of silence, cupped their hands over their mouth, and started a chant of their own among the hundreds of protesters gathered outside City Hall.

Laura Glesby Photos

Their words — “Trans rights are human rights!” — spread
through the crowd like fire.

Patricio was one of about 400 people who filled the Church Street sidewalk outside City Hall at noon on Monday, braving forceful winds. The rally emerged as part of a national effort to protest President Donald Trump’s administration on President’s Day — sparked at least in part by the 50501 Movement (standing for “50 protests. 50 states. 1 movement”), a massive online grassroots effort that originated on Reddit to coordinate mass protests of the Trump administration all throughout the country. The protests were advertised in advance as “Not My President’s Day” events.

Laura Glesby Photos

With no featured speakers or identifiable organizational leaders, random individuals like Patricio found themselves yelling out chants for the crowd to organically echo.

People called out a wide range of pithy slogans: “Lock him up!”, “Gaza is not a resort!”, “Send Elon to Mars!”, “Hands off my healthcare!”, “Support civil servants!”, “Rule of Law!”, “Black Lives Matter!”, and “Save science!”

Each chant gained traction in one corner of the crowd, then spread like a wave through the rest of the protest. Every so often, someone would start a rendition of “God Bless America,” “This Land is Your Land,” or “We Shall Overcome.” Both an American flag and an LGBTQIA+ Pride flag rippled through the windy air.

Many attendees held up signs hearkening back to Nazi Germany, featuring crossed-out swastikas, the words “Never again,” and Holocaust-inspired poetry. One protester used a bullhorn adorned with a sticker of the infamous Nazi salute by Elon Musk, the wealthiest man on earth now acting as the country’s unelected, unratified government downsizer. “Hitler dismantled democracy in 53 days,” one sign recalled.

[To read the article in its entirety and to see more photos,
please go to https://bit.ly/4i44t0a]

The 50501 Movement

The first action of the 50501 Movement was on Feb. 5, protesting Project 2025 in front of the capitols of every state. In Hartford, a number of PAR readers joined the crowd of 500 in front of the State Capitol. The second 50501 action was on Feb. 17, Presidents’ Day.

The 50501 Movement is a coalition demanding justice, transparency, accountability, and an end to executive overreach. Despite being seen as leaderless, every individual, state, city, grassroots organization, and activist is a leader in this movement.

To find out about more national days of action, visit the website https://www.fiftyfifty.one.

New ICE Age Response Team: Prepare, Don’t Panic

by Paul Bass, Feb 18, New Haven Independent

[The following are excerpts. To read the entire article, please go to http://bit.ly/41dh0aA]

If an ICE (federal Immigration & Customs Enforcement) agent is indeed at the door: “I don’t wish to speak with you, answer your questions, or sign or hand you any documents based on my 5th Amendment rights under the United Stations Constitution … I do not give you permission to enter my home based on my 4th Amendment rights … unless you have a warrant to enter, signed by a judge or magistrate with my name on it that you slide under the door …”

A coalition of 60 agencies and nonprofit groups is spreading those red cards, and that calm-but-ready message, to the heart of New Haven’s immigrant community, which is bracing for ICE mass deportation raids promised by the newly installed Trump administration. …

“Exactly what the Trump administration wants is just fear, to incite fear and panic and chaos,” Yenimar Cortes, New Haven organizer for CT Students For A Dream, said during a New ICE Age conversation Tuesday on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven.” She was joined by fellow organizers Fatima Rojas of Semilla Collective, Junta case worker Jacqueline Gonzalez, and high school youth organizer Ambar Santiago-Rojas.

An estimated 100,000 undocumented people live in Connecticut.
You can call the rapid response hotline at 220-666-4472. Rojas said people can call her at 203-747-4309 for information on attending the coalition’s Saturday community engagement meetings. Cortes invited people to contact her group at 203-787-0191 for information on Know Your Rights workshops.

March 9: Socialist Essentials

By Possible Futures Bookspace

On Sunday, March 9, from 2-3:30 p.m., the bookspace at Possible Futures, 318 Edgewood Ave in New Haven, will be hosting members of the Connecticut chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) for another meeting of Socialist Essentials, an introductory class on learnings and discussions around Capitalism, Socialism, and organizing for change. RSVP at https://bit.ly/4k7M9Fb.

More about the DSA in their own words: “Connecticut DSA is a statewide chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, the largest socialist organization in the United States. Our members are organizers – in the streets, workplaces, and neighborhoods – where we are bringing workers, tenants, and all exploited peoples into class struggle, building power in our movement for democratic socialism.”

Contact: Possible Futures, 203-446-2070 or info@possiblefuturesbooks.com.

Grab Your Beads & Dancing Shoes—Mardi Gras 2025 Is Almost Here!

by Manmita Dutta, New Haven Free Public Library Foundation

Mark your calendars—Mardi Gras is back on Tuesday, March 4! Join us for the Annual Mardi Gras Fundraiser benefiting the New Haven Free Public Library.

Celebrate with us as we bring the vibrancy and spirit of Mardi Gras to New Haven! Enjoy a night filled with festive music, delicious food, and incredible community spirit—all while supporting programs that promote equity, literacy, and access for all.

This year, we’re excited to honor two extraordinary individuals. Alder Honda Smith (Ward 30) will receive the Library Champion Award for Community Service, and Brad Gallant—Former President of the NHFPL Board of Directors and Former Member of the NHFPL Foundation Board of Directors—is the recipient of the Champion Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Tickets are now on sale. More information: https://tinyurl.com/52utcw7c

48′-Wide Billboard Says ‘Stop Arming Israel’

by Stanley Heller, Middle East Crisis Committee

There’s an electronic billboard over the highway just as I-91 flows into I-95 going towards New York City. Since Feb. 10, for eight seconds out of every minute of the day and night, drivers and passengers will see the urgent message “Stop the War, Stop Arming Israel.” The billboard directs people to the website StopArmingIsrael.org. It will be on display through March 9.

A coalition of groups and individuals thought of using the method of billboard to reach people not usually seen in progressive areas. It’s expensive but at the very least we hope this billboard display will normalize the idea of stopping the guns to Israel.

The Coalition is made up of the Middle East Crisis Committee, Palestine Solidarity Committee of Danbury, Health Care Workers 4 Palestine – Connecticut, CT for a World BEYOND War, Veterans for Peace Chapter 18, Connecticut Palestine Alliance (CTPA), Justin Paglino, MD–PhD, Tree of Life Education Fund, Hassan Fouda, and Promoting Enduring Peace. A score of other people made donations.

On behalf of the Palestine Solidarity Committee of Danbury, Dr. Justine McCabe said, “The imperial and immoral actions of the US—in arming Israel’s genocide as well as in its support for autocratic regimes in the region—dangerously collide with the persistent striving for democracy by ‘decolonized’ people who overwhelmingly identify with Palestinians.” She continued, “While working as an anthropologist and psychologist in Gaza and West Bank, I witnessed the intense frustration and disgust among Palestinians for US unconditional support for Israel—long before this genocidal war. In fact, US support for apartheid Israel as its geopolitical proxy to control the Middle East makes both Israelis and Americans less safe, less secure. Tragically, in their ‘special relationship’ as hyper-militarized cultures, the US and Israel dehumanize their own citizens by their brutalizing dehumanization of Palestinians.”

Besides messaging the general public, the coalition will alert each member of the CT legislature, the governor and federal elected officials about the billboard and the need for each of them to act to stop weapons from going to Israel.

Palestine Solidarity Online Forum March 5

Women & Gender Studies Dept., SCSU

The Southern CT State University Women’s & Gender Studies Department will hosting a forum titled “Palestine Solidarity and Movements for Gender, Racial, and Intersectional Justice” with esteemed scholars and activists Ahlam Muhtaseb (California State University-San Bernardino), Isis Nusair (Denison University), Laila Farrah (DePaul University), and Penny Rosenwasser (Jewish Voice for Peace, SF; City College of San Francisco). The event will be held online, March 5, from 5:30-7:30 p.m. EST. The link to register is here: bit.ly/3COQ9ty.

For more information, please email wgs@southernct.edu or phone 203-392-6133.

1 … 18 19 20 21 22 … 162