Governor Ned Lamont of Connecticut is pushing back against Immigration and Customs Enforcement over the arrest of parents as their children return to school, raising concerns about what aggressive immigration enforcement could mean for families. However, this criticism has quickly turned into a heated debate over where this sort of enforcement should end, and compassion for undocumented families should begin.
The governor argues that parents should be able to take their children to school without fearing that they could be detained. At the same time, some critics accused the governor of protecting people who are in the country illegally and argued that having children does not exempt someone from immigration-related consequences.
In the X clip posted above, Governor Ned Lamont appears to be speaking to a crowd of people and says, “Donald Trump has no idea what makes this country great.” He then justifies this by explaining that some children who are coming back to school are having to witness their parents being taken away by federal agents.
He then continues by saying, “We’re not gonna let that stand. You’re the people we fight for every day. The immigrant built this country, and instead we have ICE scaring people away from our schools and scaring people away from our school buses.”
According to recent reports, a construction worker had been hospitalized after ICE agents were attempting to detain him in the Danbury area. A video surfaced that featured an agent kicking the man in the head before another shouted, “Do it now, or you’re going to get tased.” This resulted in a protest outside of the Danbury District Superior Court following a surge of ICE activity.
The disagreement quickly expanded beyond the individual arrests and into familiar arguments about crime, public benefits, taxpayer costs, and cooperation between local police departments and ICE.
Comments and Reactions to the Governor’s Criticism of ICE
Many of the responses were unsympathetic to the governor’s argument, with commenters saying ICE should continue enforcing immigration law regardless of whether those detained have children. One person bluntly wrote, “Life on the run- every now and then you trip over a consequence.”
Others turned their criticism directly toward the governor, particularly over policies limiting cooperation between state or local authorities and ICE. Another person refers to the quota that Lamont mentions, writing, “First off governor who said anything about a quota? Secondly you’re the one that’s already signed the order to not allow your police to assist ice so do me a favor and get out of the way and shut up.“
The intensity of the responses makes clear that even when the people caught in the middle are families and schoolchildren, Americans are deeply divided over how much consideration ICE should give those circumstances when enforcing immigration law.
