Culture & Community | Fair Haven | Immigration | Arts & Culture | Film & Video
Top: Kiana Cintron and Ambar Santiago-Rojas, who are leaders in the social media team with Saidan Thapa. At any given time, there are roughly 10 members, they said, although meetings tend to be a rotating door of people. Bottom: Jason Martínez and Toni Engel-Halfkenny.
Saidan Thapa looked up into the camera, her eyes leaving a script that had held her attention just moments earlier. She went over the words one last time: Remember. You have rights. A radiator hissed its agreement from the corner. Beside her, Tomi Engel-Halfkenny applied a last-minute coat of lipgloss and prepared to speak.
"Hey everyone!" the two said brightly as Kiana Cintron held her phone steady and began to record. "We're from the New Haven Immigrants Coalition." Thapa pressed forward by herself. "We want to make sure everyone knows about our rapid response team and our 24/7 defense line."
Welcome to the small-but-mighty social media arm of New Haven Immigrants, a growing coalition designed to protect immigrants in the face of mounting attacks from the Trump Administration. Once a week, team members gather in Fair Haven to write scripts, film videos, and design images that go out on social media, all meant to dispel misinformation and meet people where they are. That’s in addition to the coalition’s weekly meetings, trainings, and public outreach.
What makes the group unique is its age breakdown: most of its members are still in high school, and all of them are under 25. Working across social media platforms, they share information, hold online Q&A sessions and remind people that preparation, and not panic, is the key to keeping the community safe. For the past several weeks, they’ve also led peer-to-peer “Know Your Rights” trainings in many of the city’s public schools, where teachers have helped facilitate that work.
"I think the social media team was really just a strategy that the coalition came up with in terms of like, how can we distribute information? What's the best way to do that?" said Kiana Cintron, a sophomore at UConn who grew up in the Hill, and comes back to New Haven two weekends a month to do immigrant justice work (her mom, Cheila Serrano, is the director of operations at JUNTA). "Our goal is really to distribute information, debunk any rumors, verify sightings—that's mostly what we're trying to do. So most of it will be broad but also specific to New Haven."
That work began weeks ago, as President Donald Trump promised a swift and immediate crackdown on immigrants during his first 100 days in office. Even before January, members of the coalition braced for increased violence and fear in the community. Then in the days and weeks following his inauguration, rumors began to fly. People—usually posting on social media—reported Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in neighborhoods, at Union Station, in WalMart and downtown New Haven. They rarely fact-checked the information before they shared it. The result stirred up panic in the immigrant community.
"We decided that we needed to make a social media account where we could debunk all these rumors," said Ambar Santiago-Rojas, a senior at ESUMS. The team launched TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook accounts where people could find up-to-date information, register for public "Know Your Rights" trainings, and watch videos about what to do if ICE showed up at their home or business. Members started writing scripts specific to New Haven, meant to give viewers a feeling of familiarity when they opened their phones or scrolled in hopes of an online resource. Currently, they present information in Turkish, Spanish, and English, with the goal of expanding their language offerings as quickly as possible (in New Haven, those needs include Arabic, Pashto, and Dari among others).
Sunday afternoon, that work found them seated around a table at JUNTA for Progressive Action, ready to spread the word about the coalition's new rapid response line to anyone on social media. Around them, the old house—usually a hub for wraparound service—sat quiet. Every so often, the slam of a car door or sudden, mechanized honk outside brought them back to Grand Avenue, the main artery in the heart of a vibrant immigrant neighborhood.
The line, the number for which is 854-666-4472, is a resource for those who have questions around “Know Your Rights” trainings, immigration status and documentation, physical safety and ICE presence in the city. Two weeks ago, it proved effective when people spotted ICE agents in New Haven, and the coalition snapped into action. More recently, a student called to see if she could arrange a Know Your Rights training at her high school in Woodbridge.
“We’ll record someone speaking and also have, like, visuals for when you should use it, and we’ll give an example,” said Santiago-Rojas as she opened her laptop and began to type out a script. A pink sticker that read Besos not Borders peeked out from the lower righthand corner of her computer, a nod to the L.A.-based group Las Cafeteras. “Like, we can cut to someone like, spotting ICE or pointing at ICE.”
“How do you write it so it’s not repetitive?” asked Engel-Halfkenny, a junior at New Haven Academy.
“You could just make it one thing,” Thapa suggested. “Like, ‘Hey everyone, we’re New Haven Immigrants …’” she paused, and Cintron picked up the script where she had left off.
The idea was inspired by a recent video by the advocacy group Resistencia en Acción NJ, which does work similar to groups like the Semilla Collective, Unidad Latina en Acción, and CT Students for a Dream. In the video, Resistencia member Asma Elhuni speaks right into the camera, sharing information about their rapid response team as the same words appear in Spanish above her head. Every few seconds, the scene shifts, showing the team in action and then jumping back to her face.
Ambar Santiago-Rojas and Jason Martínez get ready to record in Spanish.
“I’m just gonna see what she says, and then up to like the ‘Know your Rights’ stuff,” Cintron said. “And then we can edit the script.” She played Resistencia en Acción’s video as she began to type. “Do we want to share something like that?”
Members nodded and mmmhmmed in agreement, splitting into subgroups. Thapa, a senior at the Hopkins School who is headed to NYU in the fall, began putting together a visual in punchy red and black font, to alert viewers to the line and remind them of the number. Across the table, Santiago-Rojas motioned for Engel-Halfkenny and Jason Martínez to join her. Both are students at New Haven Academy who had come out on Sunday for the first time.
“I’m the child of immigrants who came to this country when they were very young,” Martínez said—so he feels like he owes it to the community to do this work. His mom, who hails from El Salvador, doesn’t leave the house as much as she used to. He sees it as part of his responsibility to speak up for people like her.
“It’s just such important work,” chimed in Engel-Halfkenny, whose great-grandparents, Chaim and Selma Engel, fled the Nazi death camp Sobibor in 1943 (read more about that here). “It just affects so many people and so many families. Some of the parallels [to her great-grandparents’ life] are really scary. I want to make sure people have the information.”
That was what Sunday was all about, added Cintron. When the team records videos, members work to localize their media, so that everything from wording to examples are specific to New Haven (team members also write, act in, direct and edit everything they do). As they brainstormed ideas Sunday, Santiago-Rojas recalled a recent call that came through the line at 2 a.m., from a mother in New Haven whose daughter had become sick.
Santiago-Rojas’ mom, Fatima Rojas, was the one who took the call. When she picked up, she could hear the panic on the other end of the line. The woman’s daughter had a severe headache, but the mother was afraid to go to the E.R. because of her immigration status. As the two talked through their options, Rojas reminded her to stay calm.
When she learned about the situation, Santiago-Rojas—herself an aspiring midwife, who wants to make birth outcomes better for women of color—remembered thinking that it should never feel that risky to access healthcare. “It’s inhumane,” she said.
The story sparked something in Martínez’ mind. “You know how you say, if ICE officials come to the house, put it [a warrant] under the door?” he said. “If you crack open the door—”
“Don’t open anything,” Thapa answered, almost reflexively. Beside her, Cintron noted that she was working on an upload about this specific situation. “Hold it up to a window.”
“They’re known to use force,” Cintron added as she put the finishing touches on a script. She recalled a series of immigration raids in 2007 that were so aggressive that a woman had a door slammed open on her face after unlocking it. “They don’t care how they get you. They just need numbers.” Her nails, still decorated in glittery reds from Valentine’s Day, clicked methodically along the keyboard.
That’s part of the team’s balance, which can go from a chill hang out to an informal Know Your Rights training in seconds. Members, almost all of whom live in New Haven, are not just informal colleagues: they are also peer-to-peer guides in a surreal political moment, in which escalating attacks on immigrants, women, LGBTQ+ people and people of color live alongside the reality of being a teenager in the U.S. They still go to school, apply to college, juggle part-time jobs, family obligations and homework. None of them get enough sleep. And then, in what little free time they have, they transform into community superheroes.
That was on view Sunday, as members wrapped up the script and added bright, blocky visuals before recording in English and Spanish. In between comparing fonts and colors, members talked about the AP classes their schools offer, traded tidbits on college admissions (Santiago-Rojas and Martínez are still waiting to hear from schools), and debated where to get the best thrifted jeans and jackets in New Haven. At one point, Santiago-Rojas pulled up a video from Savers, in which she’d documented a few bargain finds from the jewelry section.
At another, she put her face gently in her cupped palm, momentarily apologizing for how tired she was. For a moment, she was just a high school student again, with the same problems high school students had ten and 20 and 30 years ago. Then she got back to business, with an anecdote about her recent work with the coalition’s street team. Saturday, she had spent hours in Fair Haven, talking to business owners about using ring cameras to better prepare for ICE.
Thapa, who had taken on the role of unofficial timekeeper, steered the group towards filming. As a longtime community organizer—her mom, Eliza Halsey, founded Elm City Montessori School and now works for the City of New Haven—advocacy comes naturally to her. Last month, she helped Hopkins students raise roughly $3,000 for Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS) during their annual Run for Refugees. With fellow Hopkins’ students, she’s trying to plan a youth summit to bring together students from schools, both public and private, across the district.
At her gentle urging, team members began to record the group’s latest videos. As Cintron steadied her camera and counted them in—Thapa and Engel-Halfkenny in English, and Martínez and Santiago-Rojas in Spanish—they came surprisingly to life before the eraser-sized phone lens, the words drifting through the whole house.
“Remember,” Engel-Halfkenny said, the words clear as a bell. “If ICE stops you in public, you still have rights. You have the right to remain silent. You do not have to answer any questions. Ask, ‘Am I being detained?’ If the answer is no, you’re free to go. Do not run. ICE can claim running is probable cause for arrest.”
“And if ICE comes to your home, do not open the door unless they have a judicial warrant signed by a judge,” Thapa continued. “ICE often presents documents that are not judicial warrants. Say the phrase, ‘I do not grant you access to my home.’”
“We keep each other safe,” Engel-Halfkenny came back in. “If you or someone you know needs support, call our rapid response defense line at 854-666-4472. Save it on your phone. Share it with your loved ones.”
“Remember, we have rights,” Thapa finished. “And together, we protect our community.”