New Haven activists, angered that East Haven cops are allegedly calling the feds to deport Latinos rounded up at traffic stops, are planning a hundreds-strong cross-border protest.
The activists’ plans mark the latest chapter in an ongoing controversy involving alleged racial profiling and harassment of Latinos by the East Haven police department.
It follows incidents in which cops allegedly rounded up Latinos in traffic stops, asked for their identification, discovered they had no proof of U.S. residency, then called federal authorities to try to have them deported.
On Tuesday night in a third-floor room at the People’s Center on Howe Street, a dozen activists gathered to prepare the march, scheduled for Aug. 15. The plans come in response to police threats of deportation that allegedly played a part in several recent arrests in East Haven.
The march is designed to pressure East Haven mayor April Capone Almon to order the police department not to ask arrestees about their immigration status, as the mayors of New Haven and Hartford have ordered.
Mayor Almon, contacted before the meeting said that she doesn’t have the power to make such an order. She claimed it would violate federal law. A march would be a mistake, given progress that her town is making in integrating its Latino community, the mayor said.
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