As immigration has become an even more heated debate issue over the past year or so, especially with the migrant housing crisis and hateful political rhetoric coming from public officials, Sampan took a look back at a event that happened in the hometown of our reporter, Ryan Lundgren, 18 years ago this month. It involved immigrants without their proper paper work, men just trying to get by for their families, and a set up by local law authorities to have them detained. Here’s what happened:

On a typical September day in 2006, an incident that would fan the flames of the fiery debate over immigration law and its enforcement took place in a small but diverse city in western Connecticut.

In and around Danbury’s Kennedy Park, a small strip of land in the middle of the road between the city’s bus terminal and some local small businesses, men could be seen waiting hopefully on the sidewalk. These men are immigrant day laborers, who typically work for cash doing manual labor in construction and landscaping. Fellow tradesmen would often arrive in a truck or a van and honk to signal the need for workers and the men would scramble into the vehicle. These typically undocumented workers are integral players in the local economy, with locals knowing the spot as the place to go when they need a job done.

During the Bush administration however, immigration was an extremely hot topic for politicians, and undocumented immigrants were particularly under fire, as they have been during recent elections. Danbury in 2006 had a Republican mayor, unusual for a city in a heavily blue state like Connecticut. Mayor Mark Boughton was outspoken for his disapproval of “illegal” immigration, although his rhetoric was notably focused on the primarily non-white communities in Danbury, such as Ecuadorians. In April of 2005, the former mayor asked for the state to push the federal government to deputize local police to enforce immigration laws. In June, over 1,000 immigrants marched down Main Street to demand respect from the mayor and then a month later, the former mayor directed city officials to take action against so-called illegal volleyball businesses happening in people’s backyards.

On Sept. 19, 2006, the political banter had real consequences for undocumented immigrants in the community. Immigrant workers had assembled at Kennedy Park like any other day when a white van pulled up. The workers were offered work to take down some fencing and 11 men signed on. Only the men were not taken to a job site.

The 11 men who got into that van were taken to a parking lot where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers were waiting to arrest them. They were duped. The man who offered them a job was a Danbury police officer. The men were immediately arrested once ICE determined they were undocumented and placed in immigration proceedings. The public learned of the arrest when the men did not return home from work that day.

Michael Wishnie, an attorney and professor at Yale Law School, was not going to stand for that. He had just arrived at Yale a few months before the incident and really hadn’t even begun teaching yet. But he gathered students and community advocates to support and provide representation to the men in their immigration proceedings and a suit against the government brought by 9 of the men.

Speaking to Sampan by phone, Wishnie said how in that era it was common for ICE to move detainees far from their home, particularly to the south of the country, “effectively denying them representation” since they’re far from their community and from attorneys who are ready and able to defend them. Unlike a criminal trial, people in immigration proceedings have no constitutional right to counsel. According to data from the Executive Office for Immigration Review, people in deportation proceedings between July 2018 and June 2023 lacked representation 60% of the time. That number rises to 69% when the person is detained.

Wishnie told Sampan how the community response was strong, telling of the protests and community organizing to raise bond money for the men detained in immigration facilities. But simply freeing the men from ICE custody was only the beginning. Wishnie’s Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic of the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization at Yale University, represented nine of the 11 men in a suit against the city, alleging violations of numerous constitutional rights and an unlawful enforcement of federal law by local police.

The level of involvement of the local police was at first unclear. Boughton originally claimed in December 2006 that “the city played no part in the September 19th action” but legal proceedings eventually revealed a clearer picture. Wishnie told the Sampan that he believed the Danbury police were “deeply involved in the scheme” and that this case really raised the public’s awareness of the degree to which “police would sometimes cooperate with ICE,” something which Wishnie feels has since changed “in a small way.”  Wishnie feels that the incident is notable because it was “one of the first big raids with such a large community response.”

In a statement to Sampan declining our request for an interview, former mayor Mark Boughton reiterated that he “was not involved in the planning or execution of the enforcement action.”

But Wishnie still places much responsibility for the incident on Boughton. He told Sampan over the phone that while Boughton wasn’t actually “putting cuffs on people” that the “mayor is responsible for the police.”

Wishnie also felt the political rhetoric led to people “targeting” immigrant communities and putting them in a negative light.

Still, in 2011 when the city settled the suit brought by Wishnie’s group to the tune of almost half a billion dollars, Boughton insisted that the city had done nothing wrong. He told the New York Times that “we are not changing any of our policies, practices or customs.”

Boughton’s tone in speaking about Danbury’s immigrant communities has changed significantly since then. In his statement to Sampan he said that “Danbury is among the most diverse cities in the United States. As Mayor and now as a private resident, I am proud of the city. Serving as the city’s mayor for 20 years has been the highest honor of my life.” 

He said he never had a problem with immigrants, but only with illegal immigration, telling the Danbury News-Times in 2014 “We’ve moved past what happened.” … “The issue was never about immigrants. It was about illegal immigration and what we had to grapple with in Danbury.”

The current mayor, Democrat Roberto Alves, declined multiple requests for comment.

Boughton now serves as Connecticut’s Commissioner of Revenue Services, officially appointed by Democratic Governor Ned Lamont in 2021. According to the Danbury News-Times, as of 2014 only three of the men arrested on Sept. 19, 2006, remain in Danbury. One of them, Jose Froilan Llibisupa spoke with the News-Times in 2014 and conveyed his hopeful outlook on the future. Despite being imprisoned in ICE custody from 2006 to 2011, when Llibisupa spoke with the News-Times then he still had notable aspirations for the American dream. He told the News-Times then, “”I like to stay in Danbury, maybe open a business.”