In 1664, Edward Whalley, John Dixwell, and William Goffe fled to New Haven after being condemned to death by King Charles II. John Davenport, reverend of what is now the United Church on the Green, welcomed the men with open arms. When Charles sent bounty hunters to find the three men, Davenport used a sermon to stall them, featuring this sly line of Scripture: “Hide the outcasts, and betray not him that wandereth.” Thanks to Davenport and the New Haven community, the refugees escaped the English government and lived out the rest of their lives in safety.
Since the 1660s, thousands of refugees from Western European countries, Somalia, Afghanistan, and many others have found sanctuary in New Haven. Now, the city, along with the rest of the nation, is determining the extent to which John Davenport’s words apply to the recent flood of families and unaccompanied minors from Honduras, El Salvador, Mexico, and Guatemala.
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In 2011, 4,000 unaccompanied children crossed the border into the United States. In 2012, the number grew to 10,000. Then it was 35,000 in 2013. Now, the UN High Commissioner on Refugees expects 90,000 by the end of 2014, and the Center for American Progress predicts as many as 220,000 in 2015.
The status of these immigrants is hard to define. It is impossible to call many of those who cross the border “migrants” because do not leave their countries to merely seek economic opportunities. Rather, the UNHCR found that 72 percent of the El Salvadorian, 38 percent of the Guatemalan, 57 percent of the Honduran, and 64 percent of the Mexican children provided reasons that qualified them for international protection. In other words, as put by Megan Fountain of the New Haven immigrants advocacy organization Unidad Latina en Accion (ULA), “these Central Americans have been through very similar experiences of trauma, sexual violence, kidnapping, extreme poverty and malnutrition, as so-called ‘official’ refugees.” Agencies such as ULA, as well as the UNHCR, heard story after story of gang violence, sexual violence, domestic abuse, and deprivation from Central American women, men, and children. To Yale Latin American history professor Gilbert Joseph, it is thus no surprise that “parents started sending their kids to the U.S. or would take their whole families out so as not to be recruited or otherwise harmed. They’re doing this to give their kids better prospects.”
Since the vast majority crossed the border without documentation, though, the U.S. government has not classified them as “refugees.” American asylum law has not proven forgiving to those who have suffered at the hands of gang members in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. “Typically,” Professor Joseph explains, “the US has very formulaic guidelines for asylum, and economic refugees are not going to succeed in their cases, even though the actions of gangs have serious political and economic ramifications.”
According to the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (2008), the federal government cannot immediately deport unaccompanied minors from countries that don’t share a border with the US. Instead, the federal government must house and match children with relatives, friends, or federal foster parents through the Department for Health and Human Services.
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In its search to transfer Central American families and unaccompanied minors, the federal government has confronted a variety of responses from state governments, with some offering to house children, and others demanding expedited deportation.
In some respects, Connecticut has pursued a progressive agenda for undocumented immigrants. In 2011, Connecticut approved a state DREAM act that allows undocumented immigrant children to receive in-state college tuition; in January 2015, a law permitting undocumented immigrants to obtain drivers’ licenses will go into effect and enable 54,000 Connecticut residents to gain driving documentation.
However, in mid-July, Connecticut Governor Malloy denied a request from the Obama administration to house 2,000 unaccompanied minors in the Southbury Training School building in Southbury and Roxbury, Connecticut. Malloy argued that due to concerning conditions, the facility was inadequate to house children for an indefinite amount of time.At the time, Andrew Doba, Malloy’s communications director, explained, “Obviously, our hearts go out to the children in this situation. But we don’t currently have the ability to meet this request.” Fountain expressed her deep concern with this decision: “It was a bad and cowardly move. Governor Malloy made a political calculation that was completely out of step with what the New Haven and broader American community wanted, because the majority of the American public and Connecticut is on the side of love and compassion for these immigrants.”
Other advocates agree and argue that Connecticut could at least accommodate a more limited number of unaccompanied children in other spaces. On July 22, 2014, protesters gathered outside the building that formerly housed Gateway Community College to argue that it could serve as a potential shelter. In response, Governor Malloy’s administration declared that Connecticut would continue to explore potential solutions to the crisis, such as investigating the suitableness of the Gateway property in case of a future federal request to house children. Such a request is not likely to come again soon, however. Fountain characterized this change in policy as merely a political cover-up for Malloy’s prior decision to deny the federal government’s request to house the unaccompanied minors.
Michael Wishnie, Director of the Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic at Yale Law School, contended that Connecticut’s response became positive once federal policy shifted from searching for larger facilities to house children to placing children in private housing. “Once that became clear, I think that Connecticut responded reasonably well, in large part thanks to organizations such as ULA faith groups, labor unions, and the Connecticut Immigrant Rights Alliance, which pressured Governor Malloy to work in affected communities – town by town, family by family – to integrate these immigrants into new families and lives.” The Office of Refugee Resettlement reported that 394 unaccompanied minors were matched to sponsors in Connecticut in the first seven months of 2014,with 253 in Fairfield County, 53 in Hartford County, and 66 in New Haven County.
New Haven Mayor Toni Harp has coordinated with ten other municipalities to research and provide better services for these Central American immigrants. Her administration emphasizes that New Haven’s message will be one of welcome. Some have protested this stance, including the Southern Connecticut Immigration Resistance, which wrote in a letter to Mayor Harp, “Many of the illegal aliens who are currently invading our country are infected with numerous diseases and lack basic vaccinations, making them a significant health risk to our citizens and legal residents.” In contrast, there are many different actors in the New Haven community working to streamline access to social services for immigrants.
Wishnie commended Harp for making efforts to work with other mayors to ensure that these immigrants have access to healthcare, but added, “It would be nice to see governmental efforts better integrated with non-governmental providers, such as churches and social service agencies, because governmental activities will be more effective if they incorporate those who are closest to communities that are most affected.” Fountain echoed these remarks, voicing frustration with Mayor Harp’s delay in engaging with ULA’s work for these immigrants. Fountain notes, “We were in August when she started talking to us about the issue, which has been going on for many months. They can’t respond to what’s going on if they’re not engaging the people who are affected.”
On August 27, 2014, Mayor Harp’s administration hosted representatives from several agencies and organizations involved in the crisis, including ULA, Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS), LULAC Head Start, the New Haven Superintendent of Schools, Catholic Charities, and Junta for Progressive Action to discuss the need for public data and information on the number and rights of unaccompanied minors and undocumented immigrants. They also discussed expanding partnerships between the Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic at Yale Law School and the Yale Adult Refugee Clinic, which provides linguistically and culturally appropriate health, trauma, and mental health services to refugees from around the world. Although these collaborative efforts between City Hall and non-governmental bodies are still being worked out, the conversation has definitely begun.
Additionally, New Haven’s immigrant community is helping newcomers to adjust to their new homes and lobby for reform. Unidad Latina en Accion, founded by and comprised of immigrant volunteers, has stretched its services to work with seven unaccompanied minors and eight mothers with young children who are seeking asylum. Its volunteers, trained in the rights of undocumented families and children, have successfully registered kids for school, collected school supplies and clothing, discussed the integration of unaccompanied minors into New Haven schools with Superintendent Garth Harries, and took the kids to get physicals at Yale New Haven Hospital and health clinics. At a recent ULA meeting, the teens described difficulties in communicating with those who were not bilingual, but overall, they beamed as they talked about their friends and studies.
Despite their enthusiasm, ULA confronted challenges in persuading some of the teenagers to attend school. “They, of course, want to go to school and have a normal childhood,” says Fountain, “but they also feel the need to work because they have a debt to pay for their journey here, for the smuggler.” Fountain tells of Wendy, who stopped going to school at 12 or 13 and went to work as domestic servant. Fountain continued, “It’s taken us a little bit of effort to explain to her family members the possibility and importance of studying.” It is necessary for these kids to enroll in school because “they need to show the judge in their deportation cases that they have strong roots in American society.” Enrolling infants in pre-school is a different challenge because it is not a guaranteed right. “There’s one four-year-old girl who is so ready to start learning how to read and write, but she’s on the waitlist for Head Start,” Fountain said. “I’m hoping desperately that she’ll get in.”
ULA is not a social services agency, though, as Fountain says, “We’re starting to do that now;” also, unlike IRIS, ULA is not federally funded. Fountain says that, despite the challenges and frustration, “I have been inspired by how willing people are to get involved and to support what we’re doing. From the get-go, ULA was being flooded by calls from people asking, ‘How can I help?’” Part of that help has come through partnerships between ULA and other organizations: Junta for Progressive Action now manages a lot of the paperwork to register immigrants for social services, such as WIC, a federal nutritional and health program for women and children. IRIS matched ULA with doctors at Yale New Haven Hospital who have experience with refugees and donated backpacks and school supplies for many of the unaccompanied minors.
Furthermore, in addition to representing workers who have reported wage theft and working on several advocacy campaigns, the Yale Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic at the Law School has taken on representation for a small number of individual children who were in Connecticut without legal assistance.
It will require much more collaboration between government and non-government actors in order to fully integrate Central American families and unaccompanied minors into the New Haven community. These immigrants are barred and disadvantaged at multiple levels in society. For instance, Fountain reports that there have been two cases this month of federally funded health refusing care to undocumented immigrants, including a Guatemalan unaccompanied minor, who cannot receive help because she is uninsured.
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While neither Congress nor President Obama has made significant action towards reform, there are bipartisan calls for overhaul of the immigration system. Some of the most vocal are advocates whom Joseph calls the foundation of a “very exciting new civil rights movement.” Most advocates agree that reform must address more than processing the surge of new immigrants. Fountain says that dealing with the recent influx of Central American immigrants has opened her eyes to the wider failures of the immigration system. “You can basically see how undocumented people are second-class in this country,” she says. One member of ULA is fighting for a U-Visa after assailants beat him, leaving him nearly dead in his neighborhood in New Haven. His case, says Fountain, is part of a larger problem of violence against immigrants in the city: “Many immigrants report that they are preyed upon, beaten and robbed by opportunistic criminals who think that immigrants won’t call the police.” In another case, Edgar Javier Marin, an immigration activist who helped lead a recent ULA meeting, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in late January 2014 because of a supposed altercation in 2011 with a police officer (the officer was convicted of multiple civil rights abuses in January 2014).
Fountain emphasized that ULA would not give up its fight to defend those who are “in the under-class and treated as criminals because of their immigration status; the people who cannot enjoy full labor rights, who don’t have the same right to health. Immigration is not a new phenomenon, and that’s particularly true in New Haven. Our work will not change.”