DANBURY, Connecticut.-The week ended in Connecticut with a figure that reflects the magnitude of what happened, but also the lack of information surrounding the immigration enforcement operation. At least 94 people were reportedly detained by agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 64 of them in Danbury, according to an updated count from organizations assisting the affected families.
ICE has not officially confirmed that number. Nor is there a breakdown showing how many arrests occurred specifically between Friday, August 28, and Saturday, August 29. The tally released Saturday covers detentions documented throughout the entire week in different parts of the state.
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Danbury bore the brunt of the operation. The arrests began to be felt Monday in parks, streets, parking lots and areas where laborers waited for work opportunities. As the days passed, new videos, accounts and allegations emerged. Arrests were also reported in Stamford, Bridgeport and Hamden.
The most serious incident occurred Thursday, when several agents struggled with a man before using a Taser against him. The detainee remained on the ground, began convulsing and was transported to Danbury Hospital after ICE itself requested an ambulance.
In the recording of the 911 call, one of the agents reported that the man was shaking, experiencing difficulty breathing and appeared disoriented. The Department of Homeland Security said the detainee resisted arrest, attempted to reach for a pocketknife and possessed counterfeit permanent resident and Social Security cards.
Videos circulated publicly show the struggle, the electrical discharge and, from another angle, what appears to be one of the agents kicking the man. The images, however, do not clearly show the pocketknife mentioned by federal authorities.
Tensions also reached the school community. Activists and public officials reported arrests near schools, a preschool and school bus stops. DHS denied that ICE was deliberately pursuing parents as they accompanied their children and said one of the disputed arrests occurred away from a bus stop while the detainee was alone.
Fear had already entered local homes. The superintendent of Danbury Public Schools sent a message to families after learning that some parents were afraid to leave their homes, accompany their children or be away when they returned from school.
Governor Ned Lamont, Senator Chris Murphy, Representative Jahana Hayes and Mayor Roberto Alves questioned the operation’s violence, scope and lack of transparency. Lamont said the raids were traumatizing entire communities without demonstrating that they were making the state safer.
DHS responded by providing the press with a list of five immigrants with criminal records who were allegedly arrested in Connecticut. That same list, however, had previously been distributed and referred to arrests made in Hartford. It therefore does not establish whether those individuals were part of this week’s operation.
The operation consequently left two inseparable realities: a reported number of detainees approaching 100, and a community that still does not know precisely who was taken, under what circumstances or how many had criminal records.
By the end of Saturday, Danbury remained at the center of an immigration enforcement offensive that extended across Connecticut. Families searched for attorneys, checked names and attempted to locate their loved ones, while ICE continued withholding the official count from a week that disrupted life across several cities.
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