For Chairman of the Connecticut Republican Party J.R. Romano, however, resistance is something far more nefarious. It is a political performance for the benefit not of constituents but of the Democratic Party.

“I think that [Democrats’] rhetoric encourages their followers to be violent,” he said. “And we’ve seen it.  You’re seeing people on the left be aggressive, attack. … In liberal ideology, language is cause for assault. They believe they are justified in violently harming someone. And they’ve done it.”

In short, politicians, lawmakers and political strategists across the country have wildly different understanding of resistance.

This discrepancy raises questions: What does resistance mean? What does it look like in practice? And what does it look like here in Connecticut?

FROM THE ROOTS UP

The day after Trump was elected president, a retired attorney discouraged by the results of the election created a Facebook event calling for a women’s march on Washington, D.C. When she went to bed that night, 40 people had said they were going to the event. When she woke up the next morning, that number was 10,000.

Two months later, nearly 500,000 people descended on the nation’s capital to participate in the Women’s March on Washington, making it one of the largest demonstrations in American history. Sister marches sprung up across the globe in New York, Los Angeles, Sydney and Amsterdam, among other cities. In total, more than 4 million took to the streets worldwide.

Five officially recognized sister marches took place across Connecticut. In New Haven, over 600 people gathered on Beinecke Plaza for The Women’s March on Yale.

And citizen activism did not end with the women’s marches. Since the election, numerous groups opposing the Trump Administration have sprung up across the country. In Connecticut, groups like Women’s March CT and Action Together Connecticut have continued to organize rallies and marches in support of women’s reproductive rights, immigrants rights and other liberal causes.

Town hall meetings hosted by Connecticut’s U.S. senators, Democrats Richard Blumenthal LAW ’73 and Chris Murphy, used to draw crowds of a few hundred. Now, they are attracting audiences numbering in the thousands. In an interview with the News, Murphy said he has never seen this level of political activism since he began his political career in 1999.

He also acknowledged that grassroots activism can be a frustrating undertaking, especially in an overwhelmingly Democratic state like Connecticut, where liberal advocates often feel as though they are “preaching to the choir.”

Indeed, many have questioned whether the grassroots resistance movement will have any concrete impact on what happens in Washington.

In response, Democrats point to the withdrawal on March 24 of the American Health Care Act, the GOP plan to repeal and replace President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Republicans, meanwhile, downplay the role popular activism played in the defeat of the AHCA, instead focusing on intraparty strife.

“I think maybe the best example of how this movement has worked is around health care laws,” Murphy said. “The repeal bill was a disaster, and it was organic pressure all across the country that caused a big number of relatively moderate Republicans to come out in opposition in the days before the vote, which eventually caused the Republicans to take the bill off the floor.”

Like Murphy, Tanden credits the failure of the AHCA to Democrats. Even without the support of the conservative Freedom Caucus, she said, the bill could have passed if the rest of the Republican Caucus had united behind it. But the popularity of the ACA and Democrats’ efforts to publicize the flaws of the GOP alternative ensured House Republicans’ failure.

Jennifer Young, a conservative health care expert and co-founder of the health care lobbying firm Tarplin, Downs & Young, said she believes that citizen activism alone cannot explain why Republican lawmakers came up short.

“I think there were other more important factors in play,” Young said. “I think the major reason that the AHCA has fallen apart for now is a divide within the Republican Caucus between the Freedom Caucus members who kept increasing their level of demands and … asking for things that were in violation of the starting principles of the more establishment portion of the caucus.”

Still, Young admitted that some of those “more important factors” were themselves likely influenced by constituents’ reactions to the bill.

Joe Antos, a scholar specializing in health care economics at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, went further in his assessment.

“[The failure of the AHCA] had nothing to do with the Democrats,” Antos said. “It had everything to do with the Republicans. They hadn’t come to an agreement. Democrats weren’t involved at all. That’s obvious.”

If House Republicans had been more strategic, Antos said, they likely would have been able to pass their bill. Blumenthal’s Chief of Staff Laurie Rubiner agreed that it was Republicans’ “fecklessness” that allowed Democrats to block the AHCA. In Young’s words, watching Republican efforts to repeal and replace the ACA was “like watching a trainwreck.”

Whether or not citizen activism was the driving force behind the failure of the AHCA, Democrats believe it can have an influence in Washington.

“At the end of the day, politicians do look over their shoulder and try to understand what’s going on,” said John Podesta, counselor and chair at the Center for American Progress and former chair of Hillary Clinton’s LAW ’73 presidential campaign.

Perhaps most importantly, Podesta added, intensifying popular outcry against the administration’s actions may discourage other Republicans from stepping forward to defend the president.

Trump’s approval rating currently stands at 39 percent, according to a poll released on Friday by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion. Podesta expects that if that number falls, more Republicans will be willing to challenge the president.

“I think that ability and desire to stand up and defend the activity of the president weakens in the face of popular discontent,” he said. “I think most individuals, including people … who supported him and voted for him, are going to sort of say, ‘I’m not going to get caught on the wrong side of history.’”

LOCAL AND STATE GOVERNMENT RESISTANCE

In the minority in both the House and Senate, Democrats can only do so much to resist at the federal level. At the state level, in blue strongholds, they have far more latitude to push back against the Trump administration.

And perhaps no state takes greater advantage of that latitude than does California. With overwhelming majorities in both chambers of the state legislature — Democrats have a 55–25 advantage in the House and a 27–13 advantage in the Senate — California liberals face little state-level opposition to their agenda and can pursue policies that would be politically unfeasible in most states.

The California Values Act is one such policy. Introduced by Senate President Pro Tempore Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, the proposed legislation builds on the 2013 California Trust Act, which limited the state’s cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

The new bill would prohibit state and local agencies from using their resources for immigration enforcement and from complying with detainers, requests for local police to hold detainees for an additional 48 hours after their release dates while federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement determines whether to take them into custody for removal.

“I don’t believe that we should use local and state tax dollars to enforce immigration law,” de León said. “I don’t believe that local police officers should be forced to abandon their duty and to help ICE agents detain and deport hard-working, law-abiding residents. I don’t believe they should be in the business of separating children from their mothers and mothers from their children.”

In 2013, Connecticut became the first state to restrict detainer enforcement when it passed its own TRUST Act — the prototype for the law California would enact just months later. But today, the state continues to voluntarily enforce detainers despite their having been ruled illegal by numerous federal and state courts.

Admittedly, Democrats in the Connecticut General Assembly do not enjoy the same dominance that their West Coast counterparts do. While Democrats control the Connecticut House of Representatives by a seven-seat margin, the Senate is split 18–18 along party lines for the first time since 1893.

To navigate the deadlock, Senate Democrats will have to be more strategic than in the past, said Democratic Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, D-New Haven.

But state Democrats have not even proposed legislation like the California Values Act. Gov. Dannel Malloy in February sent guidance memos to school superintendents and police chiefs reminding them that they are not obligated to enforce federal immigration law. But Malloy’s memo is only a recommendation, though, and thus does not prevent police departments from working with ICE.

Nevertheless, according to Michael Wishnie ’87 LAW ’93, the director of Yale Law School’s Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic, Connecticut has stood strong under the Trump administration in protecting the rights of all of its residents.

Still, he said, there are a number of ways the state could do better. For one, Connecticut voluntarily shares more information with ICE than it is required to under state law. Sharing criminal records is understandable, Wishnie said, but the state also shares civil records.

The California Values Act would outlaw such unnecessary information sharing, but Connecticut has yet to follow suit.

On climate change, too, California leads the way. Under the 1970 Clean Air Act, the federal government granted California the ability to request waivers allowing it to impose vehicle emissions standards more stringent than those enforced nationally. The CAA also provides that other states can adopt California’s stricter standards. Currently, 12 states, including New York and Pennsylvania, have chosen to do so.

With just one exception, the federal government has always granted waiver requests. Now, the Trump administration is threatening to withhold California’s waivers.

“This administration has sent every signal that they plan not to authorize it,” de León said. “So that we view and perceive as a clear and present danger and risk for the health outcomes of our children who may breathe dirtier air because of the rolling back of these types of regulations.”

Despite threats from Washington, the California Air and Resources Board has moved forward with its stricter vehicle emissions standards for the period between 2022 and 2025.

Connecticut, on the other hand, has big plans but has not yet taken concrete action. The Environment Committee of the General Assembly is currently considering a carbon tax, which would begin at $15 per ton and increase by another $5 each year, but the proposal has drawn considerable pushback from the state’s business community.

State Rep. Matt Lesser, D-Middletown, said he does not know if he and his Democratic colleagues will pursue the carbon tax.

As Connecticut pushes back against Trump administration policies at the state and local levels in a number of ways, California is gearing up for head-to-head battle. In preparation for these coming fights, the California legislature went so far as to hire former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to serve as an outside legal counsel.

“We’re not looking for a fight,” de León said. “If we had our druthers, we wouldn’t fight the new administration … but that being said, once we deem that the current admin is a threat to our economic prosperity, we have to do everything in our power to protect our economic prosperity and our values.”

Where Connecticut excels is at the federal level. Since Trump took office in January, the state’s U.S. senators have emerged as leading voices of opposition to the Trump administration.

Blumenthal was especially active in the ultimately unsuccessful fight to block Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. The senator made national news when Trump targeted him on Twitter for revealing that Gorsuch was “disheartened” by the president’s recent attacks on the judiciary.

In response to each of Trump’s executive orders on immigration, Murphy introduced legislation to block the order by withholding the necessary funding. His questioning of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos went viral on social media after DeVos said guns should be allowed in certain schools due to the risk of grizzly bear attacks. And he mocked Speaker of the House Paul Ryan’s PowerPoint presentation in support of the AHCA with a PowerPoint of his own enumerating the bill’s deficiencies.

Earlier this month, Murphy used the profusion of donations he has received in recent months to establish Fight Back CT, a campaign to coordinate opposition to the Trump administration and congressional Republicans.

Leading Democrats have taken notice of the Connecticut Senators’ assumption of greater leadership within the party.

“Murphy has been somebody who has taken to the airwaves and kind of formulated the argument,” Podesta said. “Both he and Blumenthal have risen from a space where they were kind of part of the crowd into much more of leadership voices.”

Democrats in the Connecticut General Assembly have also admired their U.S. senators’ recent work. Despite being in the minority, Looney said, Blumenthal and Murphy have been effective at highlighting flaws with Republican policies.

In an interview with the News, Murphy acknowledged the opportunity presented by the “exceptional moment” now in American history.

“I think that our delegation has the chance to show some real national leadership,” he said. “I hope that people in Connecticut can see their delegation stepping up and trying to be the leaders of the choir, not necessarily just members of it.”

BEYOND BORDERS

For California, resistance extends beyond state borders. More than any unilateral action the state could take, de León emphasized the need to build interstate coalitions.

“Engaging other states is an important instrument,” he said. “Like-minded states [can] trade ideas and policies and perhaps file briefs together … These are extraordinary times that require extraordinary action.”

Brown believes these partnerships can even extend into the international sphere. In 2015, he helped found the Under2 MOU, an international coalition of subnational governments devoted to limiting global warming to less than two degrees centigrade.

Like de Leon and Brown, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti stressed the importance of cooperation to resistance efforts, saying that recently he has spent the majority of his time working to build coalitions between cities.

Just weeks after the election, he wrote a letter calling on the then-president elect to partner with cities to address the threat of climate change. More than 70 mayors from 26 states and the District of Columbia had signed the letter as of Feb. 14, 2017. Garcetti also joined with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to coauthor a letter to Trump on immigration and led the first-ever Cities’ Day of Immigration Action, an effort to bring together law enforcement, faith leaders, legal advocates and community organizations across the country in support of immigrants.

By banding together, Garcetti suggested, cities can exert an influence on the national stage.

“I think that helps that not just be a local story but a national story, and remind the White House and Capitol Hill where the power in this country resides, which is near the periphery, not in the center,” he said.

Although New Haven Mayor Harp pays close attention to initiatives introduced by other cities and has staff members on intercity policy calls, she said, her focus is more local. She was not among the approximately 70 mayors who signed on to Garcetti’s climate change letter.

According to Harp, most of the work New Haven can do can be done at a local level. In the coming weeks, the city will distribute family preparedness guides across New Haven in an effort to teach undocumented families their rights. Los Angeles, by comparison, has established a $10 million fund to provide legal services to immigrants who are facing deportation and cannot afford to hire their own lawyers.

In legislative battles and matters of grassroots activism, Connecticut lacks the size and clout to match the influence of a state like California. In the legal arena, though, power is not proportional to population.

“Some of the greatest historical battles in America have been won in a courtroom,” De León told the News. “So even a small Northeastern state like Vermont or Connecticut can play a huge role on the national body politic by litigating.”

And Connecticut’s attorney general has been active. After a Washington judge blocked Trump’s January executive order on immigration, Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen and 15 other attorneys general filed an amicus brief in support of that ruling. He also joined a coalition of 23 state attorneys general and city chief legal officers to oppose the president’s executive order rolling back Clean Power Plan, Obama’s landmark policy to fight climate change.

Unilaterally, Jepsen filed a motion to intervene in a court challenge filed by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers against vehicle emissions standards.

Still, he has yet to exert significant influence on the national legal stage, especially in cases relating to immigration, according to Wishnie.

“He has been supportive of many efforts to resist Trump, but to my knowledge he has not really led those efforts,” Wishnie said. “[Jepsen has] not led the fight there in the same way that the attorneys general of Washington state or Hawaii have done. …  Connecticut has stayed a little bit more passive.”

Wishnie acknowledged that the travel ban cases centered on international airports, so it is understandable for Connecticut to take a back seat to states with significant international air traffic. On future cases concerning issues like the federal government’s ability to withhold funds from so-called sanctuary cities, though, Wishnie said he hopes Jepsen will become more of a leading voice.

And he will have ample opportunity to do so. Many of the most consequential battles of the resistance will likely be decided in the courtroom.

If the Trump administration rescinds California’s waivers under the Clean Air Act, the state will almost certainly sue. Likewise, when the administration begins rolling back the Clean Power Plan, Jepsen said, the move will be met with legal challenges.

Even if Republicans fail to pass new health care legislation, Democrats like Podesta and Tanden speculate that Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price will try to sabotage the ACA from within. Here, too, legal questions abound with regards to how much flexibility Price has in enforcing the law.

Another major legal question revolves around the federal government’s capacity to withhold funding from states that do not follow its directives. Throughout his campaign, Trump threatened to defund sanctuary cities, and in March, United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he would deny grants from Office of Justice Programs to cities that refused to comply with federal immigration laws. On this matter, Garcetti said he is confident that Los Angeles and other cities stand on “strong constitutional ground.”

And there remains the question of the legality of Trump’s two executive orders on immigration.

Despite the vast number of legal challenges ahead, Jepsen called for a cautious approach.

“We need to be smart and we have to be strategic when we approach these issues,” Jepsen said. “If a case gets dismissed, Trump’s not going to say it got dismissed over procedural matter; he’s going to claim it as a victory on the merits. And so we have to be very careful not to hand Donald Trump cheap victories, easy victories by miscalculating our chances on a specific legal challenge.”

THE LIMITS OF RESISTANCE

Even for liberal bastions like California and Connecticut, resistance has its limits.

Last week, Trump said he must address health care before moving on to tax reform. Just like the first time Republicans tried to pass the AHCA, Democrats will do everything in their power to block it. If the bill passes, though, there may be little that states can do to mitigate its effects.

California currently receives $22.5 million in federal funds under the ACA, and Brown thinks it is unlikely the state could afford to cover the costs if those funds dry up.

“As far as what we’re able to do, we can’t replace exactly [the health care coverage that would be lost if the ACA were repealed],” Brown said. “Cities … would not be able to replace that without a massive tax increase … I don’t say it’s impossible, but I’d say it’s very unrealistic.”

According to an analysis by the Connecticut governor’s office, the AHCA could cost the state over $500 million in 2020, when the bill’s major provisions would take effect. Already facing a $1.7 billion budget deficit for fiscal year 2018 in what is the just the latest chapter of a years-long fiscal crisis, the state would be hard-pressed to offset those expenses.

Also last week, the U.S. Senate voted to allow states to withhold Title X funding from health care providers that offer abortion services, such as Planned Parenthood. In a blue state like Connecticut, the move is unlikely to change much. But in Republican-controlled states, it could spell the loss of tens of millions in funding for Planned Parenthood and a number of other family planning groups.

For Democrats in blue states, it is unclear how much there is to be done to push back against the law. Even the possibility of a legal challenge is uncertain, according to Jepsen.

“[In the case of] something like defunding Planned Parenthood, which I find highly offensive … It’s not clear yet what standing we would have from a legal standpoint to intervene,” Jepsen said.

He added that, when lacking legal authority, he would instead exercise the power of the bully pulpit to draw public attention to an issue. That is what Murphy hopes to do with regards to do with regards to issues like the president’s decision to no longer notify the public of new troop deployments.

In March, the president dispatched 400 marines to northern Syria and 300 army paratroopers to Iraq without a disclosing almost any information about the moves. Many see the shift away from the transparency of the Obama administration as a result of Trump’s desire to maintain the element of surprise, a point he often emphasized during his campaign.

For Murphy, this shift away from military transparency is a crisis, and one made all the more troubling by the apparent lack of public awareness.

“I wish there was more public consciousness about what’s happening in the Middle East right now,” he told the News.

In March, Murphy published a Huffington Post op-ed titled “Trump is dragging us into another war, … and no one is talking about it.” At the very least, he hoped, he could get people talking about it.

WHAT RESISTANCE MEANS

Just as in the case of health care, nobody knew that resistance could be so complicated. It occurs at rallies and marches, at city halls and statehouses, in legal offices and courts.

And to succeed, says Jepsen, it must interweave all three approaches — grassroots, legislative and legal. They are by no means “mutually exclusive,” he said.

For National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union David Cole ’80 LAW ’84, they’re not just mutually inclusive but mutually reliant.

“We have a three-pronged strategy, which is lawsuits, advocacy within the legislatures and the executive branch, and … encouraging citizens to pay attention to and speak out in favor of certain basic rights and liberties,” Cole said. “You really need all three of those in order to be effective in defending liberty.”

Resistance does not have a single meaning. For Tanden, it means mobilizing across-the-board opposition to a way of governing. For Brown, it means targeted opposition to specific policies. For Harp, it means defending “states’ rights,” and for Podesta it means defending the credibility of the media and the sanctity of the judiciary.

All of that, according to Cole, begins with rallies, marches and town hall meetings. “That’s what democracy is,” he said. “And that’s where I think our salvation lies.”

UP CLOSE:
A sanctuary city in name or in policy?

By Amy Cheng

Photos by Surbhi Bharadwaj

Published on April 11, 2017

At around 6 a.m. on June 6, 2007, New Haven resident Ivania Sotelo hurriedly dressed to answer her door. Moments later, seven uniformed agents whisked her from her house on Fillmore Street in handcuffs, leaving behind her 14-year-old son Jerry Sarmiento and her husband Samuel Sarmiento-Crespo.

According to an affidavit from Sarmiento-Crespo, seven agents in blue camouflage bullet vests repeatedly rang the doorbell and claimed to be looking for “a person from Guatemala,” pushing through as the door unlocked. Without providing any credentials, the officers canvassed Sotelo’s house for weapons and only presented a sheet of paper with a black-and-white photo that resembled Sotelo. Two days later, Sarmiento-Crespo visited his wife at a maximum-security facility in Maine.

The Sarmiento family was not the only one impacted in the 2007 Immigration Customs Enforcement raid, an operation that resulted in the arrest of 32 Fair Haven residents — despite ICE having only four court-issued warrants.

Kica Matos, a longtime local activist, heard about the raids in a meeting with former New Haven Mayor John DeStefano, who served from 1994 to 2014. The two discussed how the city’s new resident card could make opening a bank account easier for undocumented immigrants.

“I could tell from the look on his face and the question that he asked that there was a raid going on,” Matos said. “One of the things that we knew for sure was that they planned to come back [because] one of the ICE agents said to one of the families that they would be back.”

After the raid, Matos said the Fair Haven neighborhood became desolate, adding that the experience was so jarring that one resident asked an activist to pick his children up from school for him because he was hiding inside a box in his closet, afraid to encounter ICE agents.

DeStefano, armed with a handful of affidavits collected from victims and eyewitnesses after the raid, said he called then-Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff to report the operation as unlawful coercion. Chertoff announced the temporary suspension of raids in New Haven the following day — an announcement that, in DeStefano’s opinion, made New Haven into a sanctuary city.

But DeStefano acknowledged that this label is vague and politically charged.

“Sanctuary city” — an umbrella term that roughly covers municipalities that refuse to cooperate with federal immigration agencies — has in the past months emerged as a focal point in both national and local political discourse. Amid conflicting national attitudes toward undocumented immigrants, the varying definitions of sanctuaries elude politicians, activists and immigrants alike, even though an explicit meaning seems more relevant now than ever.

TRUMP’S DEFINITIONS?

President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to deport millions of criminal aliens. His Jan. 25 executive order, which aimed to ban sanctuary cities from applying for federal funding, defined such municipalities based on a legal distinction: whether a city willfully violates the federal statute 8 U.S.C. Section 1373.

This federal law, according to University of Denver law professor Christopher Lasch LAW ’96 who specializes in criminal and immigration law, forbids any party from setting up policies that would prevent local officials from communicating residents’ immigration status to federal officials.

But this definition of a sanctuary city is moot, he said. The vast majority of cities that say they have sanctuary city policies do not make any attempt to stop local officials from contacting federal immigration agents. Instead, sanctuary city policies tend to focus on allowing the local law enforcement to refuse to carry out ICE detainers, which are requests for local police to hold certain persons for an additional 48 hours to be released to ICE.

But in the Elm City, the New Haven Police Department has not gotten any such requests.

“ICE does not [use] our lock-up facility,” the NHPD spokesman David Hartman said. “We are not a federal holding facility.”

He added that sanctuary city is a “lowercase term” and does not have an unambiguous definition.

Aside from his executive order’s legal definition, Trump’s public speeches have broadened the scope of what it means to be a sanctuary city — to harbor criminals and blatantly flout the law. In a campaign speech in Arizona last August, he claimed that granting amnesty to undocumented immigrants and reducing federal raids would result in “millions more illegal immigrants, thousands more violent crimes and total chaos and lawlessness.”

Lasch disagrees.

“We constantly hear that sanctuary cities are defying and nullifying federal law,” he said. “Nothing could be further away from the truth. The only shred of argument that has been mustered by that point is this idea that cities violate 8 U.S.C. Section 1373.”

In spite of this narrow legal definition, its impact will send ripples to the lives of 11.3 million undocumented aliens in America. Theoretically, DeStefano said, the administration can deport all 11 million undocumented residents. But the country has neither the resources nor the ability to withstand the harm done to the economy and to the communities. According to a 2015 DataHaven report on immigration, there are about 14,460 undocumented aliens in the Greater New Haven area.

NHPD’S DISENTANGLEMENT

Six months before the 2007 Fair Haven raid, the NHPD adopted General Order 06-2, which prohibits its officers from inquiring into a resident’s immigration status during routine patrolling or investigations into civil crimes. By adopting this policy, the NHPD has been able to make residents who previously feel afraid to approach police actively cooperate with police investigations, said then-NHPD Chief Francisco Ortiz.

Before the general order took effect, local activists like Matos said undocumented immigrants were often the targets of violent robberies and abuses because they were afraid to approach the police force when they were victimized. A year before General Order 06-2 was signed, undocumented immigrants could not deposit cash into bank accounts, as they had no proper identification.

As a result, City Hall, the NHPD and local activists pushed for the general order so that undocumented residents could enjoy equal police protection from workplace abuse or outright crime.

“We recognized that we needed to bring people out of the shadows and work with the police,” Ortiz said. “Our officers didn’t want to be viewed as treating certain segments of our public differently than they treated other members.”

He added that the general order also helped the city further distinguish its police force from federal and state law enforcement. As a regional entity, the NHPD is not trained to enforce national immigration regulations, and should not be put in a position to do so, Ortiz said.

DeStefano echoed Ortiz’s sentiment and said the NHPD’s job is to de-escalate conflicts and violent outbursts, rather than to enforce federal law. To DeStefano, the decision to separate the NHPD from federal immigration is not a political statement, but rather a solution to a crime-ridden city.

“This is called staying in your lane and doing what you do well and what’s your responsibilities and things for which you are held accountable,” DeStefano said.

Nevertheless, undocumented immigrants cannot know for certain that they are safe from federal raids. NHPD officers can still inquire into a resident’s immigration status if he or she is implicated in a criminal investigation.

According to NHPD acting Chief Anthony Campbell, local residents often need clarification that the NHPD has different policies when dealing with violations of civil law, as opposed to criminal law. Campbell explained that if the undocumented individual is a domestic abuse victim or committed civil offenses like overstaying work visas, NHPD officers are prohibited from asking his or her immigration status. If the individual, however, violated criminal statutes such as homicide, then immigration information will surface during the investigation, Campbell added.

The Elm City and other sanctuary cities’ policies also do not shield undocumented immigrants from legal immigration raids — when ICE agents have federal warrants and clearly identify themselves — because the federal government has jurisdiction over immigration issues, Ortiz said. But since 2007, there has not been another ICE raid.

Ortiz added that in the 2007 raid, ICE did not notify the NHPD and the Mayor’s Office, an act that does not violate any federal procedures. Nevertheless, Campbell said failing to notify local police departments about prospective federal operations violated professional courtesy. He added that letting local police departments know about federal operations beforehand can eliminate confusion and the possibility of local officers injuring federal agents or interfering with the operation, Campbell said.

“If ICE were to relay to us that they would be doing something, we are bound by confidentiality not to share that information with members of the public,” he said. “It would be helpful to us to know what is going on so that when the community starts to react to activities that are underway, we would know what is going on and provide assistance.”

Yet as Trump unveils more of his hardline immigration policies, undocumented immigrants around the country are questioning exactly what protections sanctuary cities can afford.

Larissa Martinez ’20, who revealed her undocumented status in her high school valedictorian speech, said the city needs to be transparent with its undocumented residents about the extent of their security. For her, Yale’s campus shields her from much of the anxiety that engulfs the larger New Haven community, she said.

“The only way that [New Haven] would be a sanctuary city is that if there are undocumented people,” she said. “So, if [the city] is not fully informing undocumented residents about the extent of their protection, then it is actually hurting the undocumented more than it is helping because it is bringing ICE right here.”

If undocumented residents do still face deportation, to what extent can New Haven’s sanctuary policies matter?

CHANGES OF THE LAST DECADE

“For now, I see that it is calm. But tomorrow, we don’t know what is coming,” said Abel Sanchez, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala who has lived in Fair Haven since 1999.

When he finishes his work as a gardener, Sanchez said he sometimes attends meetings with the local immigrant advocacy group Unidad Latina en Acción to talk about what would happen if he were deported and forced to leave behind his three young children. To Sanchez, New Haven’s sanctuary city status means the NHPD refuses to collaborate with ICE.

John Lugo, who co-founded ULA in 2002, said that whether New Haven is truly a sanctuary city will be up for debate until the Elm City adopts concrete legislation that supports immigrant rights. For him, the Elm City Resident Card initiative is the centerpiece of sanctuary city policies in New Haven. All residents, regardless of documentation, can apply for a New Haven ID card, which provides access to many public services, such as the New Haven libraries and public school education.

The program was several years in the making and required the efforts of local activists. Matos, who was executive director for the local activist group JUNTA for Progressive Action, said immigrant rights advocates were focusing on helping undocumented immigrants by volunteering before they realized that enforceable city policies were the answer to their concerns.

JUNTA and ULA consulted Yale Law School’s Community Lawyering Clinic on the legality of their policy proposals and authored a report based on the clinic’s positive feedback in 2005. Titled “A City to Model,” the report recommended creating municipal ID cards, separating the NHPD from federal immigration agencies, and establishing an office for immigrant affairs at City Hall, among other suggestions, Matos said.

After a series of conversations between DeStefano’s administration and the community, the Board of Alders voted almost unanimously in favor of the municipal-issued residency cards on June 4, 2007.

Sanchez said he uses his Elm City Resident Card on a regular basis, including when he picks his kids up from school. Though Sanchez also uses the ID for bank appointments, he had to open bank accounts with other credentials as no local banks accept an Elm City Resident Card as the only ID.

Accepting other suggestions that the 2005 Law School clinic report proposed, City Hall also translated all its major documents into Spanish to service a wider community.

But for some, this is not enough.

Admitting the difficulty of serving a transient city population, Lugo criticized Mayor Toni Harp’s administration for not updating the city’s sanctuary policies even though she is lauded as the face of New Haven’s immigrant-friendly reputation. He further accused the mayor for being detached with the undocumented immigrant community and for failing to establish an institutional relationship between City Hall and activist groups. According to Lugo, he is often referred to various departments when he tries to recommend policies, such as the city’s Vital Statistics office and Community Services Administration, neither of which has offered substantive assistance.

City Hall spokesman Laurence Grotheer countered Lugo’s allegations and said the idea of creating an immigrant affairs department within local government violates the federal government’s jurisdiction over the issue. Because immigration falls under federal purview, the standard procedure is to refer any issues to Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-New Haven, who acts as an information outlet for the federal government.

He added that the mayor is integrated in the immigrant community, citing a sanctuary city committee spearheaded by Harp’s Chief of Staff Tomas Reyes to indicate her “high-level involvement” in discussions about how to better defend immigrant rights in raids. This committee, established last November, includes representatives from City Hall like Reyes, the NHPD, the Board of Education, JUNTA and ULA, according to Lugo. Longtime ULA volunteers like Fatima Rojas, Jésus Morales-Sanchez and Lugo are on the committee.

But Lugo said the task force was only put together when city activists expressed discontent after the mayor publicly reaffirmed New Haven’s sanctuary city status on Dec. 14 last year without consulting community members. Compared to other mayors from the state who want to work with immigration agents, however, Lugo said it is still important for Harp to say that New Haven is a sanctuary city.

“‘Sanctuary city’ is just a name,” Lugo said. “It doesn’t do anything for the people. Maybe it is time to go back to the original idea and start believing in the Elm City Resident Card project.”

CURRENT ADVOCACY

Under a renewed national wave of attacks toward the immigrant community, Lugo said the task force is pushing for a two-pronged advocacy effort, focusing on transferring guardianship for children whose parents are undocumented and educating the public about immigrants’ constitutional rights.

With the help from Law School clinics, the task force is putting together forms for undocumented parents to sign in order to transfer the power of attorney in the event of their deportation, Lugo said. Because many immigrant families have mixed legal status — young children are native-born U.S. citizens while their parents are undocumented — Lugo explained that designating a proxy will leave the children in safe hands if their parents are detained.

Another prominent issue among the public, he added, is a basic awareness of the rights that are afforded every member of society. Hence, ULA has been hosting around 10 workshop sessions around the city to educate residents about how to minimize the possibility of being arrested by federal immigration officers.

For example, immigrants can refuse to open the door unless there is a court-issued warrant and proper law enforcement credentials, a tactic that counteracts ICE’s usual routine of breaking through doors, Lugo said. ULA also has been passing out posters that list an immigrant’s rights and encouraging families to tape these cautionary tips by their doors.

“The main task of our group is for people to understand that they have rights,” Lugo added. “Immigrants feel like they have rights but they don’t know how to [enunciate] them. The main one is not to engage in any communication with any law enforcement agencies.”

Given New Haven’s past record of not cooperating with federal deportation operations and instituting protective policies, all stakeholders are on alert for future raids. DeStefano said the city must prepare for a massive federal raid by coordinating a transparent and public rapid response system. Grotheer also said City Hall has “a heightened awareness” that there may be “increased levels of activity” by the federal agents.

According to a February statement from Secretary of DHS John Kelly, ICE launched a series of targeted enforcement operations from coast to coast. Its officers operating in Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, San Antonio and New York City arrested more than 680 undocumented individuals, 75 percent of whom were criminal aliens. In a February Reuters article, David Marin, director of enforcement and removal at ICE’s Los Angeles field office, called the recent operations “an enforcement surge” that fall under the agency’s routine operation.

Snuffing out cynicism from those who consider sanctuary cities as futile efforts, Matos insisted that how a city responds to federal law enforcement makes a significant difference because ICE has not returned since 2007, though Grotheer cautioned against this kind of speculation.

“Can we stop ICE from carrying out these enforcement actions as they are carrying them out? Probably not. Can we put up fierce resistance? Absolutely. Can we hold them accountable? We did that in 2007 and we have every intention of doing so,” Matos said.

New Haven activists, wanting to expand the sphere of sanctuary jurisdictions, are assisting neighboring towns who also wish to develop their immigrant-friendly policies. Morales-Sanchez, a University of Connecticut student and a ULA volunteer, said there has been an increased interest in the state to institute sanctuary policies despite differences in legislative processes between jurisdictions. His group is working with Yale Law School clinics and putting together a package to introduce New Haven’s policies such as the resident ID cards and NHPD’s general order so that other towns can customize them to their local government.

“Each city has to do work on their own because we don’t know how their town works,” Morales-Sanchez said. “Overall, it’s a very general first-step kind of thing instead of instructions. Almost like a template, people can modify to fit the necessities in their hometowns.”

Morales-Sanchez said Bloomfield passed a city council resolution two months ago that it will not assist programs or operations that discriminate based on immigration status. He added that other smaller jurisdictions like Mansfield passed “symbolic” resolutions to support immigrant rights because they do not control the local police departments.

According to activists who interact closely with the immigrant community, people fear the prospect of another raid and are on a constant watch for any uniformed officers that they suspect to be immigration agents. Lugo said ULA set up a hotline a month ago for people to report possible sightings of ICE operations, and the phone has been ringing every day — though all of them so far have been false alarms.

To illustrate the undocumented immigrants’ apprehension about deportation, Lugo said they are wary of anyone who wears a uniform. An undocumented resident almost charged at a friend of Lugo’s on the street because the friend was wearing his workman uniform. He added that agents from Customs and Border Protection — ICE’s counterpart that patrols at the border — have been conducting counterterrorism exercises at Union Station. Though CBP does not carry out deportations, Lugo said their presence sends the immigrants into panic.

Sanchez, on the other hand, expressed calm and acceptance as he faces the threat of being deported. He said he has always thought about what might happen when he is sent back to his home country, but the only worry that he has is for his two sons and daughter. Holding steadfast to his belief as a devoted Christian, Sanchez said he places trust in God.

“It is what it is,” Sanchez added. “Sometimes I do think, we are here now. There is nothing we can do if worst comes to worst.”

THE NEXT FOUR YEARS…

Despite the vagueness of the legal and legislative definitions of sanctuary cities, the threats that these municipalities and their residents face are explicit. Other than promises to deport a record number of criminal aliens, Trump threatened to defund sanctuary jurisdictions under his definition, and U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced last month that the Justice Department will predicate federal grants upon state compliance with federal immigration law.

According to Grotheer, City Hall has been receiving inquiries into how New Haven will defend itself from the attacks on its immigrant-friendly policies since Nov. 9, the day after Trump won the presidential election. He said Harp has asked the city’s Corporation Counsel Office to prepare for legal comebacks should there be any attempt by the federal government to punish New Haven for adhering to its tradition of cultural assimilation.

Depending on what the Trump administration chooses to do, he added that the mayor may consider a spectrum of responses, ranging from joining other cities in a broad-based coalition or specific request for a relief. For the country’s executive branch to cut federal funding, which is appropriated by the legislative branch, perhaps raises the issue around the separation of power, Grotheer said.

New Haven’s sanctuary city status, Grotheer said, was a label first given by the DHS because no city ordinance independently proclaims New Haven as sanctuary. When Harp held a press conference last December to reaffirm sanctuary city status, Grotheer claimed that the mayor was referencing it as a colloquial term.

New Haven is not the only city that is questioning the legality of Trump’s executive order to defund the sanctuary municipalities that the White House has identified. According to Lasch, there are three ongoing lawsuits from San Francisco, Seattle and Santa Clara County, California, that attempt to clarify the scope and legitimacy of the Jan. 25 executive order. Other than the argument in which the White House and the DOJ are reaching beyond their governmental powers, Lasch said a blanket denial of all federal funding would violate the 10th Amendment, which delineates federal versus state rights.

In DeStefano’s opinion, the entire country is complicit in the emigration of a workforce that continues to support the national economy and businesses.

“We took advantage of these folks. Everyone knew they were here in increasing number,” DeStefano said. “It’s not like you woke up one morning and suddenly realized that there are 11 million folks here who are not properly documented.”

Gabriel Betancur contributed translations.

Correction, April 15: An earlier version of this story mischaracterized the relationship between JUNTA and ULA and the Yale Law School. In fact, JUNTA and ULA authored the 2005 report in consultation with the Law School, not the other way around.

UP CLOSE:
For New Haven, new colleges bring opportunity for growth

By Myles Odermann

Published on April 7, 2017

One morning in 2015, Kwamaine McCarter, who lives in the Dixwell neighborhood, went through his morning routine. He showered, ate breakfast and brushed his teeth. But the moment he stepped out of his house a block from Ingalls Rink, he noticed something unusual: Construction trucks were moving in the empty city lot just steps away.

“I was like, what is Yale about to do now?” he said.

He didn’t find out until a year later, and by that point, his emotions had shifted from indifference to eagerness. In the past, Yale had built in his neighborhood a clinic for its students and employees, a station for its police force. But this time, the construction was not another phase of commercial development for University affiliates. Instead, Yale was building two new residential colleges, which meant more people were coming to live in Dixwell.

“There’s gonna be good traffic, good vibes. Now, I’ll at least be able to say ‘Hi’ to somebody on the street,” McCarter said, gesturing to the empty sidewalk that connects Yale’s campus to Science Park. “Right now, it’s slow and nothing’s going on. Those new dorms give me the option to interact with more people.”

This fall, several hundred students will move into the new colleges as the undergraduate population begins to expand by 15 percent — a significant milestone for Yale as it attempts to increase its accessibility. And for the city of New Haven, the construction project will breathe new life into the area around the Prospect Street facilities.

Yale has been grooming the area surrounding Pauli Murray and Benjamin Franklin Colleges for more than two decades, and much of the development has already been completed. Many of the infrastructural changes to the community are already done. But as the $500 million project nears completion, residents, retailers and real estate investors in the area await the uptick in population and the economic boost it will bring the neighborhood.

A NEW NEIGHBORHOOD

For more than half a century — and through the administrations of several Yale presidents and New Haven mayors — Joe Paolillo has worked a one-man automobile repair shop on Ashmun Street.

But now, students walking from the new colleges to Payne Whitney Gymnasium past Yale Health will spot a note taped inside Paolillo’s glass door.

“Thank you for 58 years in business,” it reads.

The University purchased the property from Paolillo in June 2016 for $400,000, and another note taped on the window announces an upcoming construction project.

Yale has been acquiring properties in the area in preparation for the new residential colleges: The University also purchased 100 Ashmun St. on the neighboring block in 2014. Since then, the site has been used to treat and drug test University-contracted construction workers. But rumors have circulated among those University contractors that the site will be converted into a convenience store once the nearby colleges are completed, someone familiar with the matter said.

According to Head of Pauli Murray College Tina Lu, University administrators have discussed bringing retail to the area. One immediate need the University has been seriously discussing is a convenience store similar to Durfee’s Sweet Shoppe, but with more toiletries such as contact lens solution and shampoo. In terms of long-term plans, Lu said the University’s strategic vision includes increasing foot traffic and bringing retail space to Ashmun Street.

But the specific details of that vision are still up in the air. Yale continues to explore various uses for the property and no plans are final, according to University Properties Director Lauren Zucker. And John Pollard, Yale’s contracted retail broker, did not know what vendors Yale was considering to bring to the area.

Whatever business the potential space draws, Lu said she wants the people living around the development to have a voice in the decision. Lu added that she hopes that she, Head of Benjamin Franklin College Charles Bailyn, student representatives from the new colleges and neighborhood residents will be able to voice their opinions when the University is close to deciding on tenants.

“It shouldn’t simply be about bringing in folks who are interested in doing some business in New Haven,” Lu said. “It should really be about serving the neighborhood’s needs and being receptive to what people in the neighborhood have to say about what they’d like to see there.”

Along with potential for retail development on Ashmun Street, the neighborhood has seen some redevelopment on Dixwell Avenue independent of the University’s efforts to prepare for the new wave of students. The community has been trying to revamp its commercial district, said Dixwell Alder Jeanette Morrison, who will also represent residents of the two new colleges in New Haven’s Board of Alders. Since much of the infrastructure already exists, it is just a matter of renovating old buildings and ultimately bringing in affordable tenants, Morrison said. With Stop and Shop, a 20-minute walk for some, currently the neighborhood’s closest food shop, Morrison said the community hopes one of those tenants is a grocery store.

“A grocery store would be very much welcome,” she said.

RETAIL BOOST

With the new colleges less than a quarter of a mile away, retailers on nearby Whitney Avenue hope the rise in residents will bring increased business to their locations.

Katalina’s Bakery, located just south of the intersection of Whitney and Trumbull, currently sees little traffic from undergraduates. Owner Kathy Riegelmann said she hopes these consumer patterns can change and that she can draw undergraduate students into her bakery. But she knows that change is not guaranteed, and that the new students might follow convention, frequenting coffee shops such as Starbucks and Blue State Coffee instead.

“I hope that once they are closer to me, they will come this way,” Riegelmann said. “But once they have made their circle of movement freshman year, it seems like they don’t venture off their path.”

This was true for Thomas Stiles ’63, who entered Ezra Stiles College as a senior when Stiles and Morse College opened in 1962. He transferred from Silliman College to take advantage of the single-room living arrangements and because he and his father were distant relatives of the college’s namesake.

During his senior year, Stiles continued to occasionally eat at Yankee Doodle Coffee and Sandwich Shop — a downtown diner located until 2008 in the complex Tyco Printing now occupies at 258 Elm St.

The college switch made his walk to The Doodle slightly shorter. But even though he lived closer to his favorite restaurant, his trips to the joint did not increase. He said he did not notice any changes in other students’ interactions with off-campus establishments, either.

William Bidwell ’63, who transferred from Jonathan Edwards College to Morse for its inaugural opening, had the same experience: His off-campus patterns went unchanged.

After graduating from Yale College, Bidwell returned in 1972 to live in New Haven and to work for the University, though he has since retired. During the 54 years since his graduation, Bidwell noticed a transformation between off-campus life then and now. Though development was not perfectly linear, now, relations between New Haven and Yale are improved, he said.

As Yale’s campus has expanded, weaving itself into the fabric of the city, town-gown relations have improved. With undergraduates feeling more comfortable venturing to different parts of New Haven, and with additional students entering a new area next fall, retailers await what that could mean for their business.

One such retailer is Sun Yup Kim, the owner of Good Nature Market. Since Good Nature Market’s locations opened two years ago, taking over for Gourmet Heaven after charges of wage theft, its stores have had different experiences. According to the stores’ manager Tatae Park, business at the Whitney grocery has been steady, while at the retailer’s Broadway location, though still profitable, sales have decreased.

“Honestly, the whole Broadway market is going down,” Park said.

Park mainly attributes the decrease in foot traffic entering Broadway’s Good Nature Market to technology: Food delivery services and interfaces like UberEats, Yelp Eat24 and GrubHub are lowering the importance and relevance of retailers’ locations.

Park, however, sees promise in the Whitney location. Right now, both retail shops largely function as convenience stores, but he said he wants the Whitney location to add classical grocery shopping to its repertoire, given the amount of housing in the surrounding area. Because of nearby business offices, Park will continue serving buffet food out of the Whitney venue, but he hopes to start grocery and hot food delivery as well.

On top of the already-planned changes to the Good Nature Market on Whitney Avenue, Park thinks the location will reap increased sales when the new residential colleges open in the fall. Though the Broadway location currently brings in more customers, the Whitney store is half the distance for Murray and Benjamin Franklin students than its counterpart.

Coincidentally, if Yale’s original undergraduate expansion plan had gone the University’s way, the Good Nature Market on Whitney would be right next door to undergraduate residences.

John Hay Whitney ’26 donated $15 million to Yale in 1970 to develop two new residential colleges. The University commissioned architectural plans, but met city resistance due to Yale’s property tax-exempt status.

In 1973, the Board of Alders voted against zoning changes that would have allowed the construction. Instead, the city later approved the Whitney Grove Square development for that lot, which currently hosts as eight floors of offices for Yale as well as housing and retail locations.

Most other retailers on Whitney Avenue interviewed also expressed optimism about the potential for new customers from Murray and Benjamin Franklin Colleges.

Yet other retailers’ reactions ranged from ambivalence to doubtful with regard to the possibility of students from the new colleges visiting their businesses, arguing that the colleges are still too far from Whitney Avenue for students to travel.

But Pollard, who brokers retail space for University Properties, said the colleges are physically closer to shops than some students and businesspeople think. Pollard imagines students will head to Whitney Avenue and Broadway, as well as downtown New Haven, to purchase food and other products.

“They really aren’t far from the other areas,” Pollard said. “I think when they open, everyone will get really comfortable really quickly. You look at [Timothy Dwight College], and some people think that that’s out of the way, but it really isn’t.”

ELM CITY SAFETY

Yale did not always have the freedom to expand wherever in the city it wanted: The neighborhoods surrounding central campus were once home to violent crime that in some cases involved students. The neighborhoods around Yale evolved gradually, eventually making such an expansion into Dixwell possible.

At 2:30 a.m. on Feb. 17, 1991, Yale professor Douglas Rae’s telephone rang. A Yale student had just been murdered. Christian Prince ’93, a varsity lacrosse player and fourth-generation Yale student from Chevy Chase, Maryland, had been walking to his apartment on Whitney Avenue when a teenage male from New Haven tried to rob Prince. A gun was fired, a bullet entered Prince’s heart, and the 19-year-old was pronounced dead minutes later. No one was ever convicted of the murder.

The incident provoked a sense of crisis in Yale affiliates throughout the campus and in the parents of potential students throughout the country, Rae said. He had joined Yale’s faculty in 1967, and over the course of two decades, he saw the city lose jobs in the manufacturing sector and climb the ranks of the United States’ most dangerous cities. Rae said New Haven had reached its worst-ever period in 1990, when he joined the city government for a two-year stint as its chief administrative officer — City Hall’s second-hand man.

To slow the disintegration of town-gown relations, swift action was needed. Prince’s death set the University in motion, and it began to aid New Haven development. Over a 25-year time frame, the University helped develop the area where it believed Prince’s killer stemmed from.

Former University President Richard Levin assumed the role the year Prince would have graduated, 1993. At the start of his 20-year tenure, Levin instituted measures to help improve campus, and consequently, New Haven’s safety. The Yale Police force expanded, hundreds of emergency blue light phones began to dot campus and streets became better lit.

“By far the most important topic was how do we improve the urban environment,” Rae said. “How do we create a more constructive environment between the University and the city?”

Within the first year of his presidency, Levin launched the Yale Homebuyer Program, which incentivizes University employees to own homes and live in New Haven. The University also looked to hire more local workers.

Since 1994, the Yale Homebuyer Program has evolved to focus on select neighborhoods in New Haven, such as Dixwell, Wooster Square and Dwight — areas that border Yale’s campus. And now, if Yale employees purchase a house in Dixwell specifically, they receive $35,000, which represents $5,000 more in incentive payments than homebuyers in other neighborhoods receive.

In addition to drawing employees to purchase homes in town, the University was also buying some of its own Elm City property, including residential buildings near Dixwell for its own portfolio.

“Yale started to focus on acquiring property near [the new residential colleges] so they could put their footprint and stamp there to control the area,” said Anstress Farwell GRD ’78, the president of the New Haven Urban Design League.

In 2001, the University administration acquired the former site of American Linen Supply Company on 101 Ashmun St. to bring Yale-owned commercial development into Dixwell. Five years later, the lot became the Yale Police Department station, within which is contained a community learning center that forms a partnership between Yale and the neighborhood.

Around the same time of that acquisition, local resident Christine Alexander founded New Haven Reads, a project that created a book bank for the community to improve local literacy. Soon after, Yale purchased 45 Bristol St. and allowed New Haven Reads to house its book bank right on the border of Yale’s campus with the Dixwell neighborhood.

The University then broke ground on the Yale Health Center next door. Once that project was finished, all the major pieces had fallen in place. To complete the University’s plan to connect Payne Whitney Gymnasium to Science Hill, Yale only had one more project: a $500 million vision to construct two new residential colleges and expand the undergraduate population.

“The truth is that the neighborhood has already been impacted, positively, by developments around it. I think that the whole sweep from Dixwell [Avenue] to Prospect [Street] has seen a great deal of investment over 25 years that has been preparing the area for the arrival,” said Matthew Nemerson SOM ’81, City Hall’s economic development administrator. “The students entering the colleges won’t be a catalyst for change because the change has already come.”

A RACE FOR REAL ESTATE

Though the major changes to the area are already complete, it continues to draw investors’ attention.

Last summer, the Paris Realty Group and its partners invested in a property at 90 Bristol St. The 12-unit apartment complex cost them nearly $1.2 million — twice the price the property had sold for less than a year prior.

Paris Realty, Mendel Paris’s real estate group, gutted the outdated building. Now with renovations complete, everything is brand new. The conversion doubled rents for a two-bedroom apartment, which rose from $800 to $1,600. Come summer, Paris is confident the complex will be full.

“We look ahead of the curb and invest in areas where rents are going to go up and where people at Yale are going to be,” Paris said.

Paris envisions Bristol Street as Lake Place is now: a hotbed for off-campus housing.

Lake Place, where Yale students and city residents share a strip of street, has been the northwest edge of Yale’s territory for years. Nemerson, who has been involved in city planning for the past three decades, said Bristol Street might be the next line of Yale’s northwest edge expansion. Both are just north of Payne Whitney.

Farnam Realty Group Owner Carol Horsford, whose group also owns a property on Bristol Street, still thinks Lake Place is the more desirable of the two. Unlike Lake Place, which houses a variety of Yale-affiliated fraternities and sororities with multifamily housing, Bristol Street has a varied row of residential options. Accompanying 90 Bristol St. on the strip are single-, double- and triple-family homes — lots Paris and his partners have sought to purchase.

And right next door to 90 Bristol St. is Paris’ “dream” acquirement: Edith Johnson Towers — a 14-story, 117-unit senior living center that towers over all the residences in its immediate vicinity.

Nemerson said that transaction is a possibility. If it happened, he said the city would help ensure the conversion was done responsibly and without resident displacement.

Closer to the new colleges, developers wonder about Winchester Avenue and Mansfield Street, which are currently lined with multi-family housing units. Though graduate students are peppered throughout those homes, Horsford thinks some students are still afraid to live there. The construction of Yale Health, the Yale Police Department and the new colleges have eased some of these fears, she added.

Some Winchester Avenue residents — Morrison’s constituents — have told their alder they are going to relocate in anticipation of higher rents. Those who own their homes on the street do not share those worries, she added.

To political science professor Douglas Rae, Yale’s moves are in some ways a gentrification play, but in development, it is important to determine how such moves affect the municipality as a whole.

Nemerson said the city continues to make sure everyone has a place to live, whether it is through the Livable City Initiative, providing affordable and subsidized housing or keeping a constant dialogue between developers, residents and city government.

Both Rae and Nemerson, who combined have 80 years of thinking about New Haven, agree that, as a whole, the change is for the better.

“Ultimately, in the background, whenever you improve a portion of the city, you need to ask: are you really improving the city? Are you improving the net good or sweeping trouble to another place?” Rae said.

“For this, I think this is a net improvement,” he added.

To McCarter, the changes have been improvements too. He is excited for the new colleges to come to the neighborhood. He hopes their residents are excited, too.

Luckily for McCarter, at least one is.

“We’re the newbies in somebody else’s home, so I would love to be sponsoring cookouts where the neighborhood was invited,” Lu said. “I would love to make it known that we’re not like a kind of closed-off, elite portion, but that we see ourselves as part of Yale, but also as part of New Haven.”

Yale, Ivies prep for change in immigration policy

By Andrew Ballard

Published on January 26, 2017

The presidents of all eight Ivy League schools announced in December that they are preparing their campuses for changes to national immigration policy under President Donald Trump’s new administration.

The Ivy League leaders joined another 601 university presidents across the country who signed a letter calling upon United States legislators to uphold the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy — an immigration statute that postpones deportation or other actions by the U.S. Citizens and Immigration Services for young undocumented immigrants. Implemented in 2012, the policy is expected to be assailed by Trump’s administration.

Ivy League schools have articulated the importance of diversity and education for all on their campuses. Each pledge of support has differed in approach, but all of them aim to respond to students who fear they will be unable to graduate amid changing immigration policies. Still, the promises from university leaders have not always satisfied the calls of community activists.

Many such calls have focused on the creation of “sanctuary campuses” — a label derived from the recent nationwide “sanctuary city” movement. Many activists have argued that sanctuary status is necessary for protecting undocumented community members, but some campus administrators have disregarded these calls due to the legal ambiguity of the sanctuary label.

On Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order clamping down on sanctuary cities. The order, titled “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States,” will drastically limit federal funding to cities that do not comply with federal immigration enforcement agents. It did not cite any specific federal grants.

Below, the News compares the statements, policies and initiatives concerning the standing of undocumented students at each Ivy League institution.

Yale University

On Nov. 16, following an initial statement urging the campus community to “act with decency” in light of the presidential election, University President Peter Salovey issued a second statement in which he addressed the condition of undocumented and international immigrants at Yale. Additionally, a group of faculty, students and administrators is currently exploring potential responses to any changes in immigration law under the Trump administration, according to his email to the Yale community.

On the same day, at a campus protest, local activists said Salovey’s response was insufficient and demanded he work to transform the campus into a sanctuary camps that “actively” protects immigrants. Three days earlier, a petition calling for the designation of Yale as a sanctuary campus had garnered more than 2,300 signatures.

Salovey responded to the activists in a column published in the News on Nov. 18, in which he alluded to the calls for the creation of a sanctuary campus, but indicated neither support nor opposition to that proposal. However, he did say that the Yale Police Department would align itself with the policies of the New Haven Police Department — which currently disregards the immigration statuses of residents, a policy in line with New Haven’s sanctuary city status.

In the wake of Trump’s victory, Yale has also launched a website that addresses the threat Trump’s administration poses to DACA. The site states that the University will provide support for and aid students navigating any legal or financial challenges that result from immigration policy changes.

(Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Harvard University

At Harvard, where Hillary Clinton LAW ’73 had overwhelming student support, protests broke out shortly after the election outcome. Administrators responded with promises to protect undocumented students. But in a Nov. 28 statement, Harvard President Drew Faust said definitively that the school would not declare its campus a sanctuary, despite pressure from students in rallies and from over 350 faculty members who signed a letter calling for sanctuary status among other responses to the election.

Faust said she worried that such a designation could be counterproductive because it possesses little legal significance and could jeopardize the safety of students, according to the Harvard Crimson. Like Salovey, Faust reaffirmed the Harvard Police Department’s policies to disregard immigration status and to leave enforcement of immigration law to federal officials. Those policies match those of the police departments in both Cambridge and Boston, which have both declared themselves to be sanctuary cities. She added that the university would bolster legal resources for community members, expand the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program and continue to push for federal policies that advance the interests of undocumented students, such as DACA.

Faust’s decision against labeling the campus a sanctuary was met with criticism from both faculty and students.

Princeton University

Amid calls from the community for administrative action to protect undocumented students affected by anticipated changes in immigration policy, Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber said he would advocate for the preservation of DACA and uphold policies to assist undocumented students in completing their degrees. However, he said the university would not declare itself to be a sanctuary campus — a title Eisgruber said has “no basis in law” in a  Nov. 28 statement.

The announcement came a week after hundreds of Princeton community members demonstrated outside of the president’s office and demanded that the administration declare the university a sanctuary. A petition harboring a similar demand gathered the signatures of over 2,300 people.

While Eisgruber said he was committed to doing all that was possible to protect students, he also emphasized that Princeton should not attempt to exempt itself from federal law.

And unlike at other schools that have had the freedom to stipulate whether university police enforce federal immigration policy, a 2007 New Jersey State directive issued by the state’s Attorney General mandates that New Jersey police officers inquire about immigration status when “there is reason to believe that the arrestee may be an undocumented immigrant.”

Police are responsible for alerting federal immigration officials in that case, the directive says. Town of Princeton Police Chief Nicholas Sutter said in a 2015 statement that the policy does not leave such discretion up to the local authorities, despite the Princeton mayor affirming the city as a sanctuary in July 2015.

(Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Columbia University

Columbia University announced a plan on Nov. 21 to provide undocumented students with sanctuary and financial assistance in light of expected immigration restrictions on immigration in Trump’s term. Columbia’s provost, John Coatsworth, pledged in an email that the university would withhold student information from immigration officials lacking a subpoena and would bar such officials from entering the Columbia campus without a warrant. In response to Trump’s vow to repeal DACA, Coatsworth further pledged to increase financial aid for undocumented students who may lose the ability to work.

In a Dec. 22 email, President of Barnard College Debora Spar issued a statement in line with Columbia’s announcement and asked the community to join her in “rejecting hatred.” She said the college would provide financial support and work to protect the “privacy and safety” of the campus community.

Both Spar and Coatsworth emphasized that New York City is a sanctuary city and that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio recently affirmed the city’s commitment to maintaining that title, which in this case stipulates that local police will not inquire about immigration status or turn over such information to federal officials unless a criminal conviction is made.

Columbia President Lee Bollinger has been vocal in his criticisms of Trump. In a February talk before Trump’s victory, he said it would be a “real pity” if Trump were to be elected, according to the Columbia Spectator. And in the election’s aftermath, Bollinger said Trump’s presidency would challenge the university’s “fundamental values.”

University of Pennsylvania

After facing criticism and pressure from students and faculty for her silence amid calls that she deem the University of Pennsylvania a “sanctuary campus,” Penn President Amy Gutmann announced that the school would “stay” a sanctuary campus in a Nov. 30 email to the Penn community, according to the Daily Pennsylvanian.

She said the campus “has always been a ‘sanctuary’ — a safe place for our students to live and to learn,” — and she pledged that the university would work to protect and support the community, including undocumented immigrants. Gutmann added that the university would not allow federal immigration officials on the campus without a warrant, would provide financial support to DACA students if need be, would maintain a set of advisors for students under DACA and would “continue to advocate passionately for comprehensive immigration reform.”

The Penn declaration of “sanctuary” aligns the school with its home city of Philadelphia, whose mayor signed a law in January 2015 restricting the cooperation of city police and federal immigration officials, thereby transforming Philly into a “sanctuary city,” according to the Daily Pennsylvanian.

In the days following the university’s announcement, many community members praised what some saw as a show of solidarity. Yet some said there was still more work to be done and that they were frustrated that Gutmann did not meet directly with undocumented students as they had requested.

Other students, some represented by the UPenn College Republicans, showed disapproval of Gutmann’s statement and the policies set forth. When the Daily Pennsylvanian reported on the release, the UPenn College Republicans shared the article on Facebook under the caption, #NotMyPresident.

Cornell University

Interim President of Cornell University Hunter Rawlings released a statement on Nov. 22 seeking to reassure students upset by possible changes in immigration law in the wake of the presidential election that the university would “ensure that all can participate fully and freely in the life of the institution.”

His release followed a petition that garnered 2,000 signatures and calls from 15 university departments, programs and assemblies expressing concern about the security of students protected under DACA. And an additional 50 Cornell law professors appealed to the University to support undocumented students, according to the Cornell Daily Sun.

Responding to these messages, the interim president released a statement on Dec. 22 outlining specific policies that he said constitute Cornell’s “commitment” to protecting students under DACA. Cornell would provide financial support if DACA were discontinued, would “vigilantly protect” student information from unlawful searches and would not permit Cornell Police to inquire about immigration status unless related to criminal violations, he wrote. Rawlings added that Cornell Law School planned on launching a program for students wishing to consult a lawyer about implications of the new presidential administration’s policies.

Rawlings’s addresses did not use “sanctuary campus” language, but many of his outlined policies satisfy the details of student and faculty demands. Cornell law professor Aziz Rana — one of the faculty members involved in post-election advocacy — recognized the concerns expressed by administrators at other universities such as Brown and Harvard, who have declined to take on the title because of the ambiguity of its legal significance. Still, Rana urged the university to do all that is possible to protect its community.

Brown University

The election of Trump spurred protest and concern among students and faculty at Brown University. Brown President Christina Paxson and University Provost Richard Locke responded with affirmation of the school’s future efforts to support and protect undocumented students. But the two Brown leaders have been cautious in their pledges, noting in a Nov. 16 letter to the community that there are limits to what the university can do in the case that federal immigration officials present the school with court warrants and subpoenas.

On the same day, a walkout of around 400 students marched on the university’s administrative offices, where they attempted to present a list of demands to officials detailing measures to support students, such as refusing to voluntarily share information with federal immigration officials.

Paxson and Locke were not present, according to the Brown Daily Herald, so protestors taped their demands to the president’s door. The organization that led the event, called “Our Campus,” later expressed frustration with the administration in a Facebook post.

“The administration does not wish to listen to us. … We chanted for over 10 minutes. No one came out,” wrote Our Campus on the event’s Facebook page, according to the Herald.

Despite community frustration, releases from the president’s office and university webpages addressing “post-election” challenges to undocumented and DACA students suggest that Brown plans to take measures similar to those of its Ivy peers, such as providing additional financial support and legal help to undocumented students in the case that DACA is discontinued.

Dartmouth College

On Nov. 18, Dartmouth College President Phil Hanlon said the school would take action to uphold standards of inclusivity and student safety in light of Trump’s intentions to discontinue DACA.

The announcement came in response to a petition released three days earlier calling on Dartmouth officials to commit greater support for undocumented students, according to the Dartmouth.

“We will work within the bounds of the law to mitigate any effects on our students caused by possible revisions to DACA and other immigration policies,” Hanlon wrote.

Details of those efforts are not outlined in the statement and no further release has been made since, but Hanlon pointed out that Dartmouth was one of a number of universities who filed a friend-of-the-court brief to the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the expansion of DACA during recent efforts to expand the program.

Dartmouth has updated a website with resources for DACA and undocumented students. It refers students to several legal organizations and says the school has “engaged the services” of Curran & Berger LLP — a firm that will provide free or discounted workshops, consultations and representation to affected students.

Hanlon’s statement said Dartmouth’s financial aid policies do not take into account domestic applicants’ immigration status, but it did not address whether measures would be taken to provide further financial support to student who lose the ability to work, in the event that DACA is ceased.

Abandoned buildings:
Ghosts of Elm City's past

Story by Myles Odermann

Photos by Robbie Short

Published on October 31, 2016

Though they have long since been abandoned, English Station, the Pirelli Tire Building and Five Mile Point Lighthouse once had clear purposes. Built over the course of two centuries, they once produced electricity, light and tires. Now, empty and unlit, these buildings dot New Haven’s landscape — a reminder of an industrial era that has long since passed.

Above Ball Island near the Mill River’s mouth, power plant workers arrived at English Station to burn coal and oil for much of the 20th century. The island and plant are now brownfields, contaminated with asbestos and an organic chlorine compound. Then throughout the 1970s employees at the Armstrong Rubber Company Headquarters arrived in the lot now owned by IKEA to work in administration, research, development and supply. The oldest of the three buildings, Five Mile Point Lighthouse was built in the 1800s and guided the way for sailors through the century. It’s now a recreational destination on the shore.

ON THE RIVER

A mill that once provided electricity for New Haven residents has now become a headache for its owners.

After several years of operation, the United Illuminating Company started construction on English Station in 1927 to meet the state’s energy demand. In May 1929, the first barges carrying thousands of tons of coal sailed through the Long Island Sound up the Mill River to deliver fuel to the plant’s initial two units for production. Over the next few years, the remaining four units began operation and increased English Station’s production.

Coal-burning at the plants continued into the 1950s and 1960s. But Mill River District residents complained about vibrations from the turbines and coal ash in the air. To cut back on pollution, United Illuminating swapped oil for coal in many of its facilities, with English Station converting in 1960. The oil was also laced with the chlorine compound polychlorinated biphenyl, which was still legal in the United States.

 

In 1992, financial issues brought English Station’s operations to a halt.

United Illuminating paid Quinnipiac Energy of Killingworth more than $4 million in 2000 to determine how best to use the building. Quinnipiac Energy also received nearly $2 million from the former owner for future cleanup.

Quinnipiac tried to resurrect the plant, but money, regulations and other issues stopped it each time. The energy company then sold the plant to Evergreen Power and ASNAT Realty in 2006.

Those two companies, which now own English Station, have desperately attempted to gain capital and rid themselves of the plant. The two companies attempted to sell an oil-recycling company approximately 4,300 gallons of the plant’s old oil in 2010, 99 percent of which was contaminated with PCBs. The recycling company reported the incident to the federal Environmental Protection Agency. During the same year, ASNAT and Evergreen tried to sell the property to Ball Island for $2.5 million, but the potential buyer backed out of the deal.

Still though, a future for the plant could be found, said John Herzan, New Haven Preservation Trust’s preservation services officer.

“There are solutions for remediation,” he said. “It’s not something you just throw up your hands and say, ‘This site is contaminated, we have to tear it down.’ It’s not that simplistic.”

Following negotiations and legal battles, Iberdrola — a Spanish electric utility company — agreed to purchase UIL Holdings, United Illuminating’s parent company, for $3 billion under the condition that it would also fund a $30 million project to clean up the English Station site.

But no cleanup efforts have been visible on the site and the entire island remains boarded off from the public.

Still, the barriers do not prevent nearby resident Aly Tatchol Camara from casting his fishing line off a Chapel Street bridge, and into the nearby Mill River. Although he worries about his well-being from being near a contaminated site, Camara comes to the river weekly to fish for striped bass and bluefish.

“Maybe even from this fish,” Camara said. “I’m going to die.”

Camara’s worries are not misplaced.

The Connecticut Safe Fish Consumption Guide recommends only eating one meal per month of striped bass and bluefish if they are caught in the Long Island Sound or a connecting river. Eating fish with a high concentration of PCBs may increase cancer risks, according to the guide.

Though Camara is aware that the nearby building contains toxins, he needs the food.

“We worry about everything, but we gotta survive,” Camara said. “We wish whoever was responsible would do something about it.”

OFF THE EXIT

Toward the end of his 16-year tenure as mayor of New Haven, Richard Lee took aim at the Long Wharf neighborhood. As part of Lee’s urban renewal program, Joseph Stewart, an administrator at the Armstrong Rubber Company, proposed a simple two-story structure for the neighborhood that would serve as the company’s headquarters. Unimpressed with the design, Lee recommended hiring a high-profile architect to create the building since it would be seen by many travelers on two major highways — Interstates 95 and 91.

Persuaded, Armstrong Rubber commissioned Marcel Breuer, the architect behind Yale’s Becton Engineering and Applied Science Center on Prospect Street, to design the headquarters. After more than two years, the $7 million building was completed in August 1970.

The headquarters consisted of a two-story structure, which housed the warehouse as well as research and development. To prevent the noises from those floors carrying to the administrative offices, which were in the upper section, Breuer designed a gap between the second and third floors. These upper and lower sections are connected by several small beams and three larger supports: The two outside supports house staircases while the central support has an elevator.

For nearly two decades, Armstrong Rubber kept its headquarters in New Haven even though it experienced economic slumps throughout. In 1973, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries placed an embargo on oil exports to the United States, leading production costs to spike and vehicle-driving levels to fall due to the higher gas prices.

In neighboring West Haven, where Armstrong Rubber ran a tire factory, 120 workers were laid off in 1979. By 1982, the plant closed.

Armtek Corporation, Armstrong Rubber’s parent company, decided to focus on other parts of automobile production instead of tires. So in 1988, the parent sold its subsidiary to Italy-based tire manufacturer Pirelli for nearly $200 million.

But several years later, Pirelli decided to move out and relocate its United States headquarters.

During the late 1990s, a handful of developers tried to make use of the Pirelli building, but most projects did not pass the planning stages. Some developers wanted to create a mall, while the city considered transforming it into a school.

None of these projects succeeded, but in 1997, members of the Alliance for Architecture submitted a proposal to put the site on the State Register of Historic Places. The application was accepted.

IKEA began to take interest in the site, and bought the Pirelli building and surrounding land to construct a 300,000-square-foot store. They wanted to tear down the building, but the city and preservationists objected to total destruction.

“At the time, we suggested that they consider using [the warehouse] for parking, and they could’ve gotten two levels of parking,” said Karyn Gilvarg ARC ’75, City Plan Department executive director.

After the Board of Alders approved plans in 2002, IKEA demolished the 64,000-square-foot warehouse section of the building to create roughly 150 more parking spaces and increase the store’s visibility. Only the upper section and the lower section beneath it remain.

Since the partial demolition, the building has remained unused, but Gilvarg said it could serve as an office building, a company’s headquarters, a hotel or residential space. She added that remediation is likely necessary since health hazards such as asbestos tiles and lead paint are typical of buildings from its era.

The Pirelli building now primarily serves to display IKEA signage.

But last week The New York Times said IKEA will rent part of the Pirelli to Bortolami Gallery Associate Director Emma Fernberger, to display Bortolami artist Tom Burr’s artwork by the winter. IKEA will charge the artist $1 for the year, according to the Times.

IKEA did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

ON THE SHORE

Two hundred years ago, Jonathan Finch, the keeper at Five Mile Point Lighthouse, trimmed wicks, restored fuel and cleaned windows as well as lenses. On a clear night, Finch’s light could be seen from nearly 13 miles away.

The U.S. Department of Treasury had funded the lighthouse’s 1805 construction to notify incoming sailors that they were approaching the Southwest Ledge and New Haven Harbor. The Southwest Ledge, located a mile offshore, and the New Haven Harbor are both natural formations and have been important components of New Haven development since Puritan colonists landed in the harbor in 1638.

In the 1830s, a home for a full-time keeper was installed next to the lighthouse. More changes followed: As sailors complained about the lighthouse’s poor light due to its short height and dimness, Congress allocated more funds to replace the building. The new lighthouse, which still stands today, followed its predecessor’s shape as octagonal, but was more than twice its height. The structure stands 80 feet tall and is built with sandstone and brick instead of wood and shingles.

It guided the way for ships for 30 years. But in 1877, Southwest Ledge Light replaced it, and that version of the lighthouse is still in operation today.

In 1924, New Haven received the lighthouse as well as surrounding buildings from the federal government and bought the parcel of land. One quarter of a century later, the city made the location a park and added amenities such as bathhouses, concession stands and an amusement park.

Facing cracking mortar and decades worth of bird-feces accumulation, the city spent $86,000 in 1986 to refurbish the lighthouse and brighten the park’s aesthetics.

Today, swimmers wade in the waters and children ride a carousel nearby.