By Ira Mehlman
FAIR
Connecticut officially became a sanctuary state with the enactment of the Trust Act in 2013. That law prohibited local law enforcement from honoring Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainers in most circumstances, excepting instances where an alien has been convicted of a felony or has an outstanding arrest warrant.
That original legislation did not seem to go far enough in protecting illegal aliens in Connecticut, however. So, to rectify what one lawmaker described as “various loopholes and problems in the law that needed to be addressed,” the Connecticut Legislature amended the Trust Act in 2019. The updated Trust Act prohibited law enforcement from detaining someone solely on the basis of an ICE detainer, instead requiring a judicial warrant, unless the alien is guilty of our most serious felonies or is on the terrorist watch list.
The law also limited information sharing with ICE and also expanded the type of law enforcement officers subject to the limitations. Moreover, the 2019 law requires Connecticut law enforcement departments to notify an individual “when ICE has requested their detention,” presumably so that the individual can go into hiding.
The Trust Act, as amended in 2019, seemed sufficient to satisfy Connecticut lawmakers’ desire to protect all but the most hardened criminal illegal aliens in the state, given the Biden administration’s lack of interest in enforcing most immigration laws. However, on the eve of President Trump’s second inauguration, state officials felt the need to determine whether more protections for illegal aliens were needed.
Five days before President Trump assumed office, Janelle Medeiros, the state’s Special Counsel for Civil Rights, issued a preliminary guidance memo reaffirming “the Connecticut Office of the Attorney General’s deep commitment to respecting, honoring, and protecting Connecticut’s immigrants,” deliberately neglecting any mention of legal status. That memo, and general angst about the prospect of immigration laws actually being enforced, has resulted in yet another effort to update the Trust Act.
Last week, the newest version of Connecticut’s Trust Act cleared its first legislative hurdle in a joint vote of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. House Bill 7212 prohibits all law enforcement departments, state prosecutors and the Board of Pardons and Paroles, and local governments from assisting ICE. HB 7212 also puts all local jurisdictions on notice that if they do not fall into line with these enhanced state sanctuary policies, they will be forced to comply by means of an order of the state Superior Court. The bill even goes so far as to ban state and local agencies from using translation services provided by the federal government.
Worse yet, HB 7212 seeks to make it even more difficult for ICE to gain information about when and where the aliens they are looking for show up in court. Beyond banning the disclosure of immigration status, it generally bars the sharing of any information for the purpose of immigration enforcement, including a person’s address, workplace or hours of work, school or school hours; or the date and location of a person’s proceedings or appointments with federal agencies. Rep. Steven Stafstrom, one of the bill’s sponsors, said the bill “works to address a rising issue we’ve seen of unsafe encounters in front of our courthouses between individuals arriving either for their own court date or to accompany a loved one or to serve as a witness or even victims of crimes showing up for a court date and then being chased down the street by ICE officers.”
Connecticut is not only intent on ensuring that government entities aren’t cooperating with ICE, but the state also wants to make sure that companies it does business with avoid working with ICE as the agency carries out its mandate to remove illegal aliens from the country. The first target is Avelo Airlines, a carrier that services smaller markets like New Haven’s Tweed Regional Airport. To attract and maintain convenient air service in the New Haven area, the state suspended the aviation fuel tax for Avelo.
That tax break is now in jeopardy because Avelo has recently inked a contract with ICE to fly aliens ordered removed out of the country on charter flights. Despite the fact that the deportation flights will not originate out of Connecticut, state officials are outraged and are threatening to end Avelo’s tax breaks. “No one is forcing Avelo to operate these flights. If reporting is accurate, Avelo has freely chosen to profit from and facilitate these atrocities,” fumed William Tong, the state’s attorney general. “The State of Connecticut has an obligation now to review this business decision and to consider the viability of our choice to support Avelo,” he said. If residents of south-central Connecticut are left without reliable or affordable air service as a result, it seems like that is a price Attorney General Tong is willing to have them pay.
Connecticut’s enhanced sanctuary bill has a good chance of being passed by the Democratic-controlled State Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Ned Lamont, who has publicly told illegal aliens, “You’re welcome here.” Whether the state carries through on its threats against Avelo Airlines remains to be seen, but it does send a pointed message to other companies that are providing the state with more easily replaceable services.
Connecticut’s efforts to shield illegal aliens from immigration enforcement, however, may only strengthen the resolve of Border Czar Tom Homan to target the state. Homan has already promised to target his enforcement efforts in sanctuary cities. Connecticut officials should have little reason to doubt Tom Homan’s sincerity when he says he will do the job the president appointed him to do, regardless of state and local sanctuary policies. They need only look a few miles up I-95 to Massachusetts where state defiance has only attracted more attention from ICE.
