Category: Human Rights

US-Mexico Border and Race Symposium

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by Michelle Zacks, Associate Director, Gilder Lehrman Center

Scheduled for Saturday, May 2, this is a one-day symposium at Luce Hall, 34 Hillhouse Ave., free and open to the public, called The US-Mexico Border and Race, Past and Present. It is organized by the Gilder Lehrman Center in close collaboration with GLC Associate Research Scholar, Dr. Melissa Torres (Assistant Professor, School of Social Work, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley). The symposium features a keynote address by Prof. Sonia Hernandez (Texas A&M), followed by two panel discussions and a break-out Q&A session for K-12 teachers. Continental breakfast and lunch will be served, as well as afternoon snacks and beverages.

The program was conceived as a follow-up to the Yale and Slavery project, and the various projects at Yale focusing on the university’s and New Haven’s key roles in the eugenics movement of the early twentieth century. This program will follow that thread by focusing on the xenophobia and white supremacist ideas that have long been embedded in U.S. immigration policy broadly and in the construction and policing of the US-Mexico border in particular. Speakers will connect the histories of violent, racialized border control policies with the contemporary violence of ICE raids, warrantless detention, family separation, concentration camps, deportation, and foreign imprisonment. They also will address how communities within the borderlands continue to develop creative modes to survive and resist these exclusionary forces.

We hope you can join us for this important conversation. For more information, for the full schedule for the day, and to register, please go to bit.ly/4tZBkcu.

SCSU Rally Calls For ICE-Detained Student’s Release

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Thomas Breen, April 6, 2026, New Haven Independent

More than 100 students, teachers, and immigrant rights advocates gathered outside of Southern Connecticut State University’s (SCSU) Buley Library Monday [April 6] to speak up for a classmate who was detained by federal immigration agents off campus last week.

photo: Thomas Breen

photo: Thomas Breen

Speaker after speaker on Monday — including co-emcees Justin Farmer and Sam Morrison, students and faculty from SCSU, and organizers from UNITE HERE 217, the New Haven Immigrants Coalition, and Unidad Latina en Acción, among other groups — called for the detained student to be released, for the university to support undocumented students, and for a mass mobilization against the Trump administration in response to the federal government’s immigration crackdown.

[More at https://bit.ly/4tpkTpM.]

 

 

Thoughts on Medical Assisted Suicide to Be Viewed at Women’s & Gender Studies Conference

by Paula Panzarella, PAMAS

Thoughts on Medical Assisted Suicide, produced last year by Progressives Against Medical Assisted Suicide (PAMAS), will be featured at Southern Connecticut State University’s Women’s & Gender Studies Conference.

After the film viewing, there will be a presentation via Zoom by Anita Cameron and audience discussion.

Anita is a disability justice activist who has been involved in social change activism and community organizing for 44 years. As a Black disabled lesbian, Anita has dealt with racisim, sexism, ableism, and homophobia – sometimes combinations of these.

As of this printing, the workshop “Medical Assisted Suicide: A Threat to the Vulnerable” is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, April 18, 1:45-3 p.m. More information is at https://inside.southernct.edu/womens-and-gender-studies/conferences/2026, or call 203-392-6133.

Report on New Haven Immigrants Coalition

by Susan Bramhall, NHIC

On Saturday, Feb. 7, one of the coldest days of our current snowy winter, the New Haven Immigrants Coalition (NHIC), with support from 8 other organizations – C4D, CT Tenants Union, PSL CT, New Haven Federation of Teachers, Artists Against Apartheid, Yalies for Palestine, and Greater New Haven Indivisible – invited groups and community members who want to engage more actively in support for immigrant justice to a gathering at the First Presbyterian Church. The crowd of 210 that responded to Break the ICE! filled the sanctuary! The incredible turnout showed our shared enthusiasm to expand and strengthen our community in response to authoritarian and racist threats. A primary goal of the organizers was for everyone to meet and get to know each other and the organizations they work with and to learn about the many aspects of the NHIC work. I can testify that the initial “ice breaker” challenge to talk to three people you haven’t met before during a 5-minute period was inspiring and gave me a sense of how diverse the gathering was.

NHIC organizers gave brief overviews of the current NHIC working groups including the rapid response and hotline team, the family solidarity group providing direct aid for families with members who have been detained, the group doing outreach to communities and businesses to prepare for anticipated ICE activity, court accompaniment, food solidarity supporting families who can’t risk shopping or are food insecure. After the gathering in the sanctuary, people were treated to a delicious dinner from Mazorca and hangout sessions to connect with working groups and organizations. It was an exciting warm event, truly Breaking the ICE on a freezing night.

FUNDRAISER in April – stay tuned for the date. To learn more, apply to volunteer, get trained or donate, visit the NHIC linktree at https://linktr.ee/NHVimmigrants.

Mark Colville’s reflections on his trip to Minneapolis

Friends,

I’ve just returned from two days of street actions in Minneapolis, including a solemn procession from George Floyd Square to the site of Renee Good’s murder, the general strike and massive ICE OUT march on Friday, which shut down the city. This email is a brief report-back, and comes with special thanks to everyone who kicked in donations to make the voyage possible. It changed me. I’m deeply grateful.

Arriving in the wee hours on Wednesday, I was able to make it to the federal building by noon Thursday, where an ongoing protest vigil established at the beginning of the ICE occupation has continued every day. (To put the occupation in perspective, at present there are, on average, maybe 12-14 ICE agents assigned to most cities in the country; in Minneapolis, there are now over two thousand.) Resisters at the federal building spend the time yelling at ICE personnel as they hastily pass through the gate in their cars, most hiding their faces under masks even while driving.The anger among the people here is widespread, focused and relentless. Words like “coward”, “traitor”, “fascist”, and “FUCK ICE” are hurled perpetually. Pictured on the lower left is my new friend, Bill Breeden, a retired UU minister from Indiana with whom I was connected by Barb Cass and Mike Miles from the nearby Anatoth CW farm. (They’ve graciously offered hospitality to any of us who wish to return in the coming weeks/months.) Bill and I ended up accompanying one another for the next two days of robust resistance.

On Friday morning, upwards of fifty faith-based resisters gathered at St. Paul’s Lutheran church, located in the neighborhood where George Floyd was murdered.

A solemn pilgrimage began at that very spot, now known as George Floyd Square and occupied by a variety of neighborhood people’s organizations. Each corner of G.F. Square is marked by a large statue of a raised fist, with a platform for public speaking-out. A gas station across the street has been converted to a community gathering place. The coalition of people’s organizations here has come up with a list of 24 specific demands, and they’re committed to action and occupation of this public space until each one is met.

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At Anti-ICE Rally, Artists Weave Culture Through Calls to Action

by Lucy Gellman, Jan. 12, 2026, Arts Paper

Artists, activists, immigrant rights advocates and organizers came together Sunday afternoon [Jan. 11] for “ICE Out For Good,” a rally and gathering that was part of a national day of action grieving the death of Renee Nicole Good at the hands of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis, Minn. last week. Organized by the national group 50501, the gathering became a call to action amidst escalating violence from ICE agents, directed at both immigrants and U.S. citizens.

“None of this is normal,” said longtime organizer and human rights champion Kica Matos, now president of the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) and the Immigrant Justice Fund (IJF). She took a moment to acknowledge the 32 known people who have died in ICE custody in the last year alone, victims of a machine that has deported over 500,000 immigrants since January 2025. “Let me say it again. This is not normal.”

“What we are witnessing is authoritarianism and it is being built on the backs of immigrants,” she continued. “Renee’s brutal murder is a sign that this administration’s violence and lawlessness has now extended beyond immigrants. You know why that is? That is because authoritarianism never stops at its first target.”

[To read the article in its entirety, see https://bit.ly/49zbowQ]

Campaign to Free Dr. Abu Safiya, Director of Hospital in Gaza

The Middle East Crisis Committee, Promoting Enduring Peace, Campaign to Free Dr. Abu Safiya

In the fall of 2024, the Israeli military decided to empty Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital. It bombarded parts of the facility and ordered it to be evacuated. The hospital director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, and his medical staff refused to leave.  Dr. Abu Safiya said, “I will stay inside my hospital until the last moment.” The attacks continued. His 15-year-old son Ibrahim was killed on hospital grounds by an Israeli drone. The doctor himself was seriously wounded in another attack inside the hospital. and suffered six shrapnel wounds to his leg. Finally, when it looked like the whole hospital would be leveled, Dr. Abu Safiya agreed to leave.

On Dec. 27, 2024, Dr. Abu Safiya and his remaining hospital staff surrendered to Israeli forces. By then, Kamal Adwan Hospital had been made inoperable by the IDF who threatened worse destruction. Dr. Abu Safiya has been in a series of Israeli prisons ever since. His attorney says he’s lost a third of his body weight and has suffered assault and beatings. He has not been charged with any crime but is being held under a dubious Israeli “Unlawful Combatants” provision. No evidence has been offered that he’s a combatant of any kind. Amnesty International calls for Dr. Abu Safiya’s release.

The Campaign to Free Dr. Abu Safiya was recently started in Connecticut by the Middle East Crisis Committee, Promoting Enduring Peace, and other organizations, and has composed an open letter calling on the United States government, which supplies Israel with armaments, intelligence, and full diplomatic backing, to insist that Dr. Abu Safiya be freed along with other medical staff from the former Kamal Adwan Hospital.

To see the letter and to sign on to it, please send an email to mail@thestruggle.org. For more information about Dr. Abu Safiya, see bit.ly/4sbdPwT.

 

Greater New Haven Indivisible News

by GNHI Steering Committee

We are the steering committee for the newly formed Greater New Haven Indivisible (GNHI). Our general mission is to push back on the Trump administration’s agenda and policies that are leading to an authoritarian system in the United States. We want to work, through non-violent actions and resistance, to make the US more democratic, progressive, and pluralistic.

All of you have expressed interest in various ways of being notified of the start of another Indivisible group in New Haven. We want to invite you to the first meeting of GNHI:

Date/Time: Wednesday, Oct. 8, 6-7:30 p.m.

Place: Stetson Free Public Library, 197 Dixwell Ave., New Haven. Take elevator or stairs to 2nd floor; we will be in 2nd floor classroom.

At this meeting, we will briefly introduce ourselves, our mission statement, our code of conduct, and our practical vision for meetings. We will also be talking with you about areas of interest for “break-out” groups/meetings – which we hope will start meeting separately in the future – where the planning and taking of many actions will occur. We hope that some/many of you will come ready to join break-out groups – and some will be ready to participate in organizing, planning, and helping lead those action-groups.

And, we will discuss the next big 2nd No Kings protest on Oct. 18. With limited time, we will be sticking to our agenda, and hope that member cross-talk can continue in the break-out, smaller group meetings.

We are excited to meet you all and to begin making “good trouble” together. Please share this information with anyone you know who wants to join; tell them to send us an email. They can find our email through the national Indivisible website or give it to them: greaternewhavenindivisible@gmail.com.

You don’t need to respond/RSVP, just come.

Excerpts from State Sen. Gadkar-Wilcox Statement on Supreme Court Deportation Decision

Today [June 24, 2025], State Sen. Sujata Gadkar-Wilcox, a professor of constitutional law, released a statement in response to the Supreme Court decision that allows the deportation of undocumented immigrants to third-party countries. Sen. Gadkar-Wilcox argues that sending individuals to countries outside of the country of their origin, where they don’t speak the language, understand the culture, or share the same religion, and where they may face harm and violence, violates our most fundamental constitutional right to due process.

“The Supreme Court’s recent ruling allows the Trump administration to deport individuals to countries that are not their country of origin, including conflict zones and countries where they could face persecution – all without due process. Not only is this unconscionable, but it goes well beyond the pale of settled law.”

“We have already seen this administration send individuals to a prison in El Salvador known for human rights violations without so much as a charge. We have seen masked officers abduct a student off the street for exercising free speech. We have seen Donald Trump defy court orders that he does not agree with. We are witnessing an attack on our Constitution unfold before our eyes.”

“In 1944, the Korematsu v. US case legitimized the sending of more than 120,000 Americans of Japanese origin to internment camps. When we reflect on that case today, history shows us that Supreme Court cases that blatantly violate basic human rights will ultimately be remembered as a stain on the constitutional order of the United States. This administration and the Supreme Court would do well to look towards history and learn from our most shameful moments, not repeat them.”

One of the central purposes of due process is to ensure that people are not detained without a meaningful opportunity to be heard or deported to places where they would face violence and persecution. The due process right that the court undermines with this decision is so fundamental to our system of laws that it goes all the way back to the Magna Carta (1215): “No man of what state or condition he be, shall be put out of his lands or tenements nor taken, nor disinherited, nor put to death, without he be brought to answer by due process of law.”

The court has held the line on due process in Boumediene v. Bush (2007) and JGG v. Trump (2025). In the former, which applied to detentions of non-US citizens after 9/11, and in the latter, in which the Supreme Court prohibited the Trump Administration from implementing the Alien Enemies Act to send deportees to El Salvador before providing due process to the accused, the court upheld due process. It should have provided that same due process here. This is the minimal constitutional requirement and a fundamental moral obligation.

No Kings! National Day of Defiance! June 14

Saturday, June 14, 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Connecticut State Capitol, 210 Capitol Ave., Hartford.

In America, we don’t put up with would-be kings. NO KINGS is a national day of action and mass mobilization in response to increasing authoritarian excesses and corruption from Trump and his allies. We’ve watched as they’ve cracked down on free speech, detained people for their political views, threatened to deport American citizens, and defied the courts. They’ve done this all while continuing to serve and enrich their billionaire allies.

On Saturday, June 14, we’re taking to the streets nationwide. We’re not gathering to feed his ego. We’re building a movement that leaves him behind.

The flag doesn’t belong to Donald Trump. It belongs to us. We’re not watching history happen. We’re making it.

On June 14th, we’re showing up everywhere he isn’t—to say no thrones, no crowns, no kings. Check out nokings.org for more information.

A core principle behind all No Kings events is a commitment to nonviolent action. We expect all participants to seek to de-escalate any potential confrontation with those who disagree with our values.

[From the website www.mobilize.us/nokings/c/no-kings/event/create. Also see www.nokings.org and www.fiftyfifty.one.]

Emergency Protest and March Held in Hartford

As we prepared this issue for print, there was an emergency march in Hartford on March 21 to protect Gaza, protect immigrants, and protect free speech. Demands also included ending USA aid to Israel and freeing Mahmoud Khalil (a US permanent resident taken by ICE) and other immigrants and activists who have been detained because they’re activists for Palestinian rights. People rallied outside the ICE/federal building at 450 Main St. and then marched to the Capitol.

Earlier in the week, Israel violated the 2-month-old ceasefire and killed over 500 people in Gaza. Over 200 of the dead were children. Israel shortly thereafter sent in ground troops to Gaza.

For video of this rally and others, please see thestrugglevideo.org.

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]

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.

CT Legislators Horrified by Account of Incarcerated Person’s Homicide

by Mark Pazniokas, February 14, CT Mirror

The death of Carl “Robby” Talbot in a jail cell thick with the choking fumes of a potent pepper spray was described Friday as the catastrophic consequence of excessive force and medical neglect, compounded by a forged use-of-force report and an ineffectual internal investigation.

Angel Quiros, the commissioner of correction, did not protest the lawmakers’ harsh assessment. Talbot’s mother, Colleen Lord, offered one dissent: Her son’s death also is a consequence of the criminalization of the mentally ill, a failure that began outside jailhouse walls, long before her Robby died.

The first public dissection of all that went wrong at the New Haven Correctional Center on March 21, 2019, came Friday in a Judiciary Committee hearing on whether to accept a proposed $3.75 million settlement of the federal lawsuit filed by Talbot’s estate.

Undisputed is that Talbot, 30, who had a history of mental illness and misdemeanor arrests, had become agitated after being jailed on a probation violation, and that a jailhouse supervisor, Lt. Carlos Padro, responded with four long point-blank bursts of pepper spray, twice in a shower room and again in an elevator and a cell.

Read the whole story here: https://ctmirror.org/2025/02/14/ct-inmate-death-hearing

 

 

As Temps Drop, Tiny Shelter Residents Double Up

Jabez Choi, Dec. 6, 2024, New Haven Independent

A group of unhoused neighbors have taken to sleeping two or even three to a room inside unheated pre-fabricated tiny shelters that are still standing in a Rosette Street backyard.

“When we do bundle up, it’s tolerable being in there,” said Robert Harris, as he pointed at a row of white Pallet shelters. “But sometimes it’s colder in these because it can be like an ice box.”

There are currently 14 people living in six different under-100-square-foot shelters that have stood for over a year in the backyard of the Amistad Catholic Worker House at 203 Rosette St. in the Hill.

Harris, who has been residing in that Rosette Street backyard since May, said that all the residents have numerous blankets and sleeping bags to keep warm throughout the night. Currently, he sleeps outside in what is called the “hut.” If the cold becomes unbearable, he sleeps inside the Amistad house, on a chair.

A group of homelessness activists — led by Amistad’s Mark and Luz Colville and their neighbors and supporters — first erected these six single-room shelters last fall to provide a roof for people displaced from cleared homeless encampments and who otherwise had nowhere else to go.

In July, the city called on UI to turn off the power in these shelters, following the expiration of a 180-day state permit allowing electricity to the backyard, thereby rendering those shelters “illegal dwelling units.” (The shelters do not have individual kitchens and bathrooms. As part of a suite of zoning relief granted by the Board of Zoning Appeals in March, the Amistad Catholic Worker House has to make available the main home’s bathroom and kitchen to the backyard residents.)

In the intervening five months, people have continued to sleep inside these six tiny shelters — which have only become more crowded with the onset of winter weather…

read the entire article at https://tinyurl.com/yck8s6yv

The Elm City’s Commitment to LGBTQ+ Equality

City of New Haven Press Release Nov. 22, 2024

Mayor Justin Elicker celebrated the City of New Haven receiving a score of 100 on the 2024 Municipal Equality Index (MEI), a comprehensive assessment of LGBTQ+ equality in the areas of municipal policies, law, and services, which is conducted annually by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation.

The Human Rights Campaign Foundation is a 501(c)3 organization and the educational arm of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ civil rights organization. As part of its work, the HRC Foundation conducts the MEI, which was released nationally on Thursday. The MEI “examines how inclusive municipal laws, policies, and services are of LGBTQ+ people who live and work there” and “cities are rated based on non-discrimination laws, the municipality as an employer, municipal services, law enforcement and leadership on LGBTQ+ equality.”

New Haven received a score of 100 on the 2024 [MEI], the highest score that can be received by a municipality. This marks the first year that the City of New Haven has achieved this distinction, and New Haven is one of only two cities in Connecticut to receive an MEI score of 100, with the other being Stamford.

The index evaluated and recognized New Haven’s commitment to LGBTQ+ equality across several key areas, including: non-discrimination laws, the municipality as an employer, municipal services, law enforcement policies, and leadership on LGBTQ+ equality.

One item of note is the city’s support of and partnership with the New Haven Pride Center, which provides a variety of critical services, free resources, and meaningful programming for LGBTQ+ residents of all ages. This includes monthly community dinners and social events, affinity social spaces, professional and personal development, a community food and toiletries pantry, a clothing closet, a lending library featuring LGBTQ+ books, among other services.

The score is also reflective of the city’s efforts to ensure LGBTQ+ residents are included and able to access city services and programs. Residents can connect with the city’s LGBTQ+ Liaison, Killian Gruber, at kgruber@newhavenct.gov or 203-946-4984, or the New Haven Youth and Recreation Department’s LGBTQ+ Liaison, Ernest Cloman, at ecloman@newhavenct.gov or 203-946-4939.

Read the entire article at https://www.newhavenct.gov/Home/Components/News/News/509/144

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