Culture & Community | East Rock | Immigration | Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services (IRIS) | Refugees
Cousins Angie Cana and Aslin Argueta. Lucy Gellman Photos.
On one side of Mitchell Drive, Aslin Argueta and Angie Cana watched the road with bated breath. Already, they’d been up for hours, shaking off the morning cold to register runners and find a place to watch the action from the sidelines. Somewhere in the crowd, Argueta’s parents and uncle were nearing the finish line. When the two saw them coming down street, both burst into cheers and applause.
Sunday afternoon, thousands of runners, walkers, stoller-pushers and at least one four-legged friend beat the snow for the 18th annual Run for Refugees, a 5K from the not-for-profit Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS) that weaves through the streets of East Rock before finishing at Wilbur Cross High School. The event raised close to $150,000 for the organization—and sent a strong message of community in the face of unrelenting anti-immigrant rhetoric from President Donald Trump.
“When hate comes our way, the question becomes: How do we as a community respond?” said East Rock/Fair Haven Alder Caroline Tanbee Smith, whose own mom migrated from Korea to the U.S. decades ago. “I’ll tell you how New Haven has responded. New Haven has said no to hate, and has said yes to love.”
It could not come at a more critical time for IRIS, which is in the midst of a $3 million emergency fundraising appeal following a flurry of anti-immigrant executive orders and freeze on refugee admissions from Washington last month. Last month, a sudden “stop work” order from the U.S. State Department froze new resettlement efforts in New Haven and across the country, cutting off $4 million in federal funding.
That includes a freeze on Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) holders, who fought alongside U.S. forces in Afghanistan. In the wake of that news, IRIS has laid off 20 percent of its staff.
“The sudden drop in federal funding is hitting us really hard,” said Executive Director Maggie Mitchell Salem, who began her tenure in January 2024. “We anticipated funding would be reduced, but not within the first two weeks [of the administration]. So we're scrambling. We had plans before all of this happened, we're trying to accelerate some of those, but we need to be able to land financially, and that's really tough right now.”
The organization currently employs 70 full-time staff members, including through its satellite office in Hartford. Salem would not share IRIS’ current budget; the organization’s most recent 990 tax filings report a budget of $16,860,154 for the 2023 fiscal year.
Top: Mayor Justin Elicker, who has done the Run for Refugees for years. "We will get through this together!" he said during a series of short remarks before the race.
Throughout and before the event, both speakers and runners stressed the importance of standing up for immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, particularly in the face of a number of federal attacks on newcomers to this country. Prior to Trump’s inauguration, IRIS had focused its work not only on refugees, but also on migrants largely from Latin America, who received no federal support and relied heavily on private funding. It is unclear where the last month leaves that work.
Smith, who has become a fierce champion of LGBTQ+ and immigrant rights during her first term on the New Haven Board of Alders, praised the city for not giving in to the hate, vitriol and fear-mongering that has unfolded on a national level. Two weeks ago, she was proud to see neighbors collecting and throwing away anti-immigrant flyers that showed up unexpectedly in the city’s East Rock neighborhood. Since, she’s watched New Haveners advocate for and defend their neighbors, instead of letting divisiveness get the best of them.
“When we see orders and words that try to make us distrust our neighbors, New Haven has instead come together, forging collaborations and friendships I know will last a lifetime,” she said. “And now, today, this morning, thousands of us, all of us are here to run fueled by courage, by principle and by care … New Haven, we have made the choice to say no to hate.”
Top: Maggie Mitchell Salem. Bottom: Smith and Tong, who both ran after speaking.
Attorney General William Tong, himself the proud child of immigrants, recalled spending his Friday in federal court in Boston, as part of a lawsuit against the Trump Administration defending birthright citizenship. Tong is currently among 18 attorneys general arguing that Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship violates the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
For him, the lawsuit is as personal as it is professional: he is a U.S. citizen through birthright citizenship. “So many of us share this story. It’s our story,” he said. “And that is what we’re fighting for today, and every day. All of us, let us commit to each other as we run.”
“We will never quit, we will never surrender, and we will never, ever back down!” he added before coming down from a stand for speakers and joining the thousands of runners in the street.
During and after the race, several runners and supporters echoed that resolve. After braving the snowy drive from Stamford, first-time attendees Argueta and Cana stood just feet from the finish line, keeping an eye out for family members who had signed up to run. The two, who are cousins, have families that hail from the same town in Guatemala.
Top: Friends Eve Famutimi and Timeica Bethel.
When Trump took office in January, the two felt anger and then fear, and then more anger. Since, the past month has felt both personal and “really infuriating,” Argueta said.
“There’s a lot of times, in this moment, where I’m really angry,” Argueta said. “It’s really heartbreaking. But again, that reminder that there is always community.”
“Because we come from immigrant families, we knew that it was something that we wanted to support,” Cana added. A freshman at Quinnipiac University, she is part of her school’s IRIS chapter, and wanted to come after hearing about the event. “For me, it [this moment] is really infuriating, and really scary as well. I have family members who I know are struggling, are scared because of everything that is going on.”
As they cooled off from their first Run for Refugees on the curb, partners Miguel Valencia and Stephanie Vasquez said they also chose to run as an homage to their immigrant families. A senior at High School in the Community (HSC), Valencia grew up in awe of his own parents, who migrated from Mexico “to give me a better life,” he said.
His mother, who grew up in Puebla, came to Connecticut when she was just 17. His dad, from Oaxaca, made the journey not much later. There’s not a day when he doesn’t think of the sacrifices they’ve both made to give their children a life in New Haven.
Top: Carlos Torres. Bottom: Stephanie Vasquez and Miguel Valencia.
“I get to study here and I get to take full opportunity of the chances that I get,” he said. “Over there, it’s not the same opportunities to have a kid, a family, a home. They came here for the American dream, and I get to enjoy that. Just because we were born here, we still remember where our roots is from. It’s what makes us who we are.”
“I’m glad this state fully supports us, especially the immigrants in this country,” added Vasquez, a first-year at CT State Gateway who is getting her prerequisites in nursing. At home, her and hails from Giatemela and her mom is from Ecuador.
Nearby, Yale University senior Carlos Torres called the event “an amazing display of community support,” from the elected officials who hype up the runners to the sheer number and diversity of people who run. As a global affairs major, he’s already thinking about how to effect change on a grassroots level, with plans to move back to his home community in Nevada.
“I think right now with the current political situation, it’s a great reminder that like, we all have each other and we have nothing to be afraid of,” he said.
Top: Olichka. Bottom: Runners rocked everything from rainbow flag capes to business casual.
At a small ceremony for winners inside the school’s gym, Olichka—whose off-stage name is Olga Borsh—said that she too is taking solace in and working to build community during this time. Two and a half decades ago, Borsh immigrated to the U.S. from Odessa, making a home in Connecticut. She’ll never forget the support she received as an immigrant in a new home—or how hard she had to work to build her life here. Now, she tries to do the same for newcomers in whom she can see echoes of her younger self.
“This is who I am,” she said. “This is who my friends are. We are adults, and I think there are other ways they [the current administration] could send a message without hurting families and tearing them apart.”
Saturday, she performed a series of Ukrainian folk songs before a lectern draped with the blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag. Every so often, runners stopped by to admire her dress, a pattern of traditional Ukrainian embroidery on thick white cotton.
Before leaving the mic, she cued up the music to "Oy U Luzi Chervona Kalyna," a Ukrainian folk song preaching national resistance. It felt right for the moment, she said.
“At the end of the day, we’re super optimistic and we’re unbreakable,” she said. “We know we definitely will win. We will stay for our rights, and be as a country again, as a whole.”