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Lucy Gellman File Photo.
Write a workplace safety plan and practice it until everybody knows the drill. Designate a point of contact who knows the law and can deal with officers in real time. Mark certain areas as private, especially in buildings with shared public spaces.
Have the tools and the know-how to document and record any situation. Stock “Know Your Rights” cards in different languages. Ask for a judicial warrant and check to see if it’s signed by a judge.
Don’t run away. Don’t panic. Do remain silent. It’s your constitutional right, regardless of immigration status.
That advice came to nonprofit leaders, childcare providers, arts advocates and cultural workers last week, during “Immigration Enforcement: What Nonprofits Need To Know,” a webinar from Pro Bono Partnership and Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS) prepping workplaces for unanticipated visits from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Led by attorney Ellen Messali, the hour-long presentation is the latest effort to help New Haveners learn how to protect their friends, neighbors, employees and sometimes themselves from ICE amidst intensifying anti-immigrant policy from the Trump Administration.
Messali works in family and immigration law for the New Haven Legal Assistance Association and is a founding board member of Caritas Immigration Legal Services.
“It's all about preparedness so that you feel like you have a plan going into all of this,” she said at the top of the webinar. In a tiny, bright box beneath her, Pro Bono Partnership’s Priya Morganstern pulled up a slide deck and got started. The words “Why Would ICE Come To A Workplace” flashed in purple text across the screen.
“I think that one of the biggest myths is that undocumented people don’t have constitutional rights,” Messali later added. “They have the right to remain silent in this situation. Meaning not saying anything …. And staff should not give ICE permission to enter the workplace.”
The focus on preperation comes as President Donald Trump doubles down on a campaign promise to arrest and deport millions of undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers, including from areas like hospitals, schools, and houses of worship previously considered off limits to ICE.
In the past days alone, that includes hundreds of migrants deported to a Panama hotel, the detention (and subsequent abrupt removal) of migrants at Guantánamo Bay, an agreement from Costa Rica to accept hundreds of Central and South Asian migrants and the end of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 500,000 Haitian migrants already living in the U.S.
Having a plan in the midst of these times, Messali said, is about knowing who and what ICE is (particularly as ICE impersonations have become more common), why officers might show up, and what rights employees have in the midst of a visit.
In some cases, she explained, a workplace will receive advanced warning for something called an I-9 Audit, requesting proof that an employer is abiding by I-9 regulations. Normally, those regulations concern work authorization in the U.S., and an employer has both advanced notice and three days to provide such authorization.
In the case of an I-9 audit, Messali said, ICE officials must provide advanced notice and are able to legally search an employer’s I-9 records, and report employees in violation of those regulations. In that case, an employer has 10 days to provide valid work authorization. If they cannot, they must terminate that employee.
“Note,” read a line of text on the screen. “At any stage, you can ask for more time (to speak to a lawyer).”
But I-9 audits are not the most likely cause of ICE showing up at a workplace, Messali continued—particularly in the current political moment. What is more likely, and has already put sanctuary cities like New Haven on high alert, are unannounced workplace raids and targeted arrests, in which agents may come to people’s front doors, apartment buildings, offices, or children’s schools.
These can include something that Messali called “spillover,” in which ICE agents arrest people who were not among their original targets. In Zoom rooms and offices across the tri-state area, attendees quietly took note as Messali spoke at a quick, even clip that reminded them to stay calm in each situation.
“They are allowed to and they often do lie about who they are,” she cautioned, directing attendees to a full page of frequent ICE ruses from the Immigrant Defense Project. For instance, she explained, ICE agents often say they are the police or do not wear their uniforms, appearing instead in plain clothes. In these and all cases, she said, it’s fully within a person’s rights to ask for police identification.
It’s also within their rights to stay silent and ask for a signed judicial warrant, she added. She pulled up a slide with an unenforceable warrant, pointing out the red flags that people do not always know to look for when denying entry to ICE officials.
If, for instance, a warrant looks like it comes from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security—rather than a U.S. District or State Court—it’s not enforceable. Neither is a warrant that does come from a district or state court that isn’t signed by a judge. She encouraged attendees to also check a warrant’s date to confirm that ICE is not using an expired warrant.
“I think what ICE really banks on is you not knowing that you can say, ‘I’m not letting you in without a warrant,’” she said. “If they know that they cannot just run roughshod in a situation, they will not just stick around.”
“Ninety percent of the time, they do not have a judicial warrant,” she added moments later.
In the case of a signed and dated judicial warrant, she continued, preparedness and compliance are key—and so is still acting within one’s rights. If a warrant is signed by a judge and comes from a U.S. district or state court, employees must allow ICE to enter the premises, where they are allowed to search and question the people and things outlined in the warrant.
In these cases, Messali encourages at least one employee to follow each ICE agent through the “portion of the facility identified in the warrant,” she said. During this time, employees are fully within their rights to document the officer, which can mean recording video or taking notes or both. Employees can also ask to make copies of any items or documents that ICE agents seize, and Messali encouraged them to document exactly what is removed from a workplace.
She stressed the importance of writing down an agent’s badge number, name and identifying information, and checking the warrant to confirm that ICE does not extend its search beyond the physical spaces and people that are outlined therein.
That’s also why Messali advises workplaces to designate certain spaces as “private” and have a full, practiced and enforceable response plan in place in case ICE shows up. In addition to the right to remain silent and defer requests to an employer or supervisor, employees have the right to ask for an attorney and should not sign anything without a lawyer present.
In all situations, she added, it’s still important to give ICE agents enough physical space to operate; interfering with or touching them is a punishable offense. So is lying about the immigration status of an employee or oneself. Both facilitators directed attendees to “Know Your Rights” cards in multiple languages, which people can present to ICE agents at any time.
Every so often, a question would pop into the chat, and Messali and Morganstern would pause the conversation to answer it, and field similar questions that inevitably followed. Mel Cordner, co-founder and director of Q Plus, asked to know more about private meetings in public spaces, like a support or affinity group held in a library. What about lobbies and waiting areas, added other participants, from Brooklyn-based environmentalists to Early Head Start providers in Connecticut and New Jersey.
Messali noted the importance of practicing vigilance and finding spaces to designate as private (those that lock, like conference rooms and office spaces, may be a natural fit). She encouraged attendees who work in shared or semi-public spaces to be more aware of who they might be letting in when they swipe a key card or unlock a door. For instance, a daycare might want to let parents and caregivers know that they shouldn’t buzz anyone into the lobby.
“We all do that really kind thing—you’re holding the door for the five people behind you, and you're like ‘It makes sense they probably live here, whatever,’” Messali said. In these times, it’s okay—and actually encouraged—not to do that. She added that for spaces like daycare, after-school or Head Start programs, “families definitely need to be informed that this is the procedure,” so they know to practice it and don’t put other families or employees at risk.
Yaira Matyakubova and Fatima Rojas at "Untold Stories," a celebration of immigrant and refugee stories from Music Haven, last year. Lucy Gellman File Photo.
It joins other efforts across the Elm City—and the greater New Haven region—to prepare and protect New Haveners from ICE. For weeks, a coalition of individuals and organizations has worked to run everything from multi-lingual Know Your Rights trainings to a rapid response hotline and social media strategy team. The idea is meeting people where they are.
The number for the rapid response hotline is 220-666-4472.
In addition to nonprofits like IRIS, Junta for Progressive Action, CT Students for a Dream and the Semilla Collective, the coalition relies on people who are stepping up to protect their neighbors and get information out there before raids intensify in the city. On Friday, its effectiveness was front and center, as multiple sources reported an ICE presence in the city.
“The hope is for people to stay alert and not to panic,” said Fatima Rojas, an organizer with the Semilla Collective, in a phone call Friday morning. “We know our rights. We’re telling people to be alert and prepared.”
Meanwhile, that advice is already helping some New Haven nonprofit leaders prepare, with the hope that they will never have to implement those response plans and protocols. Friday morning, ARTE, Inc. Co-Founder David Greco said that the organization has already taken steps to ensure that its programming is safe for participants, who include young kids enrolled in their Saturday Academy and after-school collaboration with Junta.
That includes creating shared protocols for students, families, teachers and staff members, such as locking the doors to their space and making sure an administrator (usually Greco, who is there for every session) is always on site to interface with any strangers or law enforcement officials who do show up.
Students at ARTE's Saturday Academy in 2019. Lucy Gellman File Photo.
Since Trump’s inauguration last month, ARTE has seen”a little bit of a dip in attendance,” Greco said, and heard from parents who are leaving the house less because they are afraid. It’s his goal to make them feel as safe as possible.
In its two decades and counting, ARTE has never asked participants to list their documentation or citizenship status. (“Neither does the school system,” Greco added, and in his voice was a gentle reminder that education is a right, and not a privilege.)
“It's scary,” he said. “I’m all for fixing the border and if someone’s a criminal, getting them out. But the people who are here, doing the right thing, paying their taxes, there should be a path to citizenship for them.”
Alden Woodcock, executive director at EMERGE Connecticut, added that for many city residents, the threat of ICE may also trigger a layered trauma response. EMERGE, which was founded in 2011, works to ease reentry and prevent recidivism through employment and support after incarceration. When any sort of law enforcement official enters the space, participants may feel their trust and safety has been violated.
“I think that’s what we’re trying to figure out is what precautions are necessary,” Woodcock said in a phone call last week. He recalled a parole officer who came to and made an arrest at EMERGE’s offices a while ago. It took months to rebuild communal trust in the program, which also sends people out on planting and contracting jobs across the city.
For those dealing with reentry, he added, documentation may already be hard to obtain and provide, regardless of citizenship status. If someone has a record, he said, the state makes things like applying for and obtaining an ID or driver’s license that much harder—even if they’re a U.S. citizen or immigrant with legal standing.
“In order to accomplish our goals and for people to heal, they have to feel like this is a safe space,” he said. “We’re very protective of the culture here. We have standards and we have expectations, but at the end of the day, this is a family atmosphere.”
What that means in real time is implementing many of Messali’s tips, added Godfrey Azima, site director of EMERGE’s Bridgeport chapter. For instance, EMERGE and Project M.O.R.E. share a building at 830 Grand Ave. in New Haven, but both have access to locked spaces that they can and plan to designate as private. The organization is also implementing protocols for their offices and for workers who may be on a job offsite and asked to provide license and registration.
“This just opened my eyes to help think of things,” said Jasmine Sams, director of organizational development for the nonprofit, of the webinar. “This gave us a leverage to support our privacy and support our protection beyond this worksite.”
The next public “Know Your Rights” training from New Haven Immigrants is this Saturday, March 1, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Dixwell Community Q House, 197 Dixwell Ave. in New Haven. Learn more and follow the group here. Listen to an interview with members, from our colleagues at WNHH Community Radio, above.