Thousands say ‘No!’ to collaboration with ICE

It’s a basic principle of Marxism: one way that change occurs is when quantity becomes quality. A glass is filled with thousands of drops of water but only one is enough to make it spill over. You can subject people to just so much indignity, but one insult can awaken a rebellion.

That is the situation here in Danbury, Conn., where the city’s latest anti-immigrant measure led to an angry protest estimated at more than three thousand people, almost all from the local Brazilian, Ecuadorian and Mexican communities.

The immigrant residents of this small city have been subjected to every injustice. Police regularly engage in racial profiling, making “driving while brown” the most common motor vehicle violation. Anti-immigrant groups parade their bigotry in the street and in the local media, receiving constant encouragement from Mayor Mark Boughton, who has made a name for himself with his attacks on immigrant communities. And over it all is the constant threat of raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, who in 2006 entrapped and detained 11 Latin@ day laborers here for the crime of wanting to work.

In the face of this relentless animosity, some immigrant families began moving out of Danbury. Many more felt powerless. Mayor Boughton then took his anti-immigrant policies one step further, announcing last fall that Danbury would authorize the police department to train with ICE agents so officers could work under ICE supervision, carrying out raids and enforcing federal immigration laws. After several contentious city council meetings, the matter was scheduled for a final vote on Feb. 6.

Previously, Boughton had rejected calls for participation in the so-called ICE ACCESS program, claiming that immigration enforcement was a matter for the federal government. The flip-flop reflected his willingness to cater to the most reactionary and bigoted elements. It also reflected his belief that the immigrant community in Danbury was firmly under control.

In January, Boughton may have begun to see his mistake. The Brazilian and Ecuadorian communities hosted meetings numbering in the hundreds, something that had never happened before. But conventional wisdom said that no more than a few hundred people—both pro- and anti-immigrant—would show up for the city council meeting.

On Feb. 6, Main Street resembled a ghost town: shops were closed in solidarity with the immigrant community and most were papered over with hundreds of pink flyers opposing the ICE ACCESS proposal. At evening, crowds began to swell around City Hall.

Long before the city council meeting was scheduled to begin the crowd numbered in the hundreds, creating a sense of enthusiasm and militancy as people chanted, waved pink flyers and sang. The numbers continued to grow until more than three thousand people forced the police to shut down the street to accommodate the protest.

Local anti-immigrant forces showed their true colors by turning out less than a half-dozen people and ridiculously declaring that the thousands of protesters were actually “bussed in” from outside the city.

The Feb. 6 demonstration is one of the largest to occur in decades in this town of only 75,000 people. Mayor Boughton has dropped one drop of water too many into the glass and it has begun to overflow.

As the immigrant community begins a campaign to boycott business owners that support the ICE ACCESS ordinance, both sides are wondering where the struggle will emerge next.