Over 100 Newtown residents and people from surrounding areas filled the seats in Edmond Town Hall’s gymnasium for the Rock This Democracy: Community Dialogue on Sunday, March 16.

The event served as a follow-up to the Rock This Democracy rally on February 22 and included an extensive open-mic segment for anyone who wanted to express their opinions. As one of the several organizers for Rock This Democracy, Alex Villamil said that the goal of the community dialogue was to give people a place to hear each other out and respectfully engage in public discourse, while also reflecting the best interests of the community. Attendees were also given an action sheet, encouraging people to stay in touch with their congressional delegation, special elections, and more.

The community dialogue primarily focused on the topic of immigration, but also gave room for the audience to bring up any related topics such as democracy, authoritarianism, and law.

Jim Allen, one of the other Rock This Democracy organizers, emphasized for people to contact wherever they feel their concerns need to be heard.

“We’re not here to tell you to become a member of the Democratic party,” Allen said. “I’m not here to defend any particular partisan view, so wherever you feel like your concerns need to be heard, that’s your call to action.”

Villamil told the audience that one of the reasons they were doing the event was to introduce how immigration gets frequently lumped together with criminalization.

“But it’s very important to separate the two,” Villamil explained. “Just because you’re an immigrant doesn’t make you a criminal.”

To that end, they hosted several speakers who have in-depth knowledge on immigration issues to share insight into policies and practices impacting the local immigrant community. These included Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services (IRIS) Community Outreach Specialist Tetyana Pavelo, as well as CT Students for a Dream (C4D) Executive Director Tabitha Sookdeo and C4D representative Juan Fonseca Tapia.

IRIS Struggles

Pavelo said it was an honor to have a space to help each other, answer questions, and to stay informed. She shared that she’s a Ukrainian immigrant and has been in the United States since 2008. While she immigrated by choice, Pavelo added how not everyone gets that choice.

She joined IRIS a few years ago when the war in Ukraine began and participated in helping to resettle over 1,000 Ukrainian families in Connecticut. Pavelo broke the people they work with into three categories: refugees, immigrants, and humanitarian parolees, which she said are individuals outside the country who help the US government.

Pavelo said that IRIS is currently aiming to help people from these groups establish new lives in Connecticut, many of whom are displaced and fleeing conflict. However, IRIS is facing great challenges. Major budget cuts forced IRIS to downsize their staff. The sudden decrease in federal funding also led IRIS to recently announce its New Haven office will be closing by April 30.

“We’re still just trying to provide help while saving whatever financial resources we have,” Pavelo said. “We heavily rely on volunteers right now.”

Connecticut Students For A Dream

Sookdeo said that C4D fights for the rights of undocumented youth and for their families. With everything happening, she said it feels like every hour “there is something that we’re having to either respond to or try to adapt to.”

She noted the first day of the new administration saw the rescission of the sensitive locations doctrine, which prevented US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from going into schools, health institutions, and places of worship like churches, synagogues, and mosques.

Sookdeo wanted everyone to be aware of an “ideal of a registry” where undocumented people ages 14 and older have to give their information up, meaning they have to give their fingerprints and addresses. She said this should “make everybody pause and say, ‘wait a second, we’ve seen things like this before.’”

Sookdeo noted that the immigration section of Project 2025, a political initiative published by conservative thinktank The Heritage Foundation aiming to reshape the United States federal government and executive branch in favor of right-wing policies, reads “almost like a checklist” now.

She said this includes sensitive location rescission, as well as agencies like the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) being co-opted to participate in ICE detentions.

The most recent thing, Sookdeo noted, was President Donald Trump invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 on March 15 to deport immigrants he alleged were members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. The act has been used sparingly throughout US history to detain or deport nationals during wartime, invasion or predatory incursion.

“I just want to let folks know that we’re at a time where federal overreach is at an all-time high that has passed historical levels, especially on immigration,” Sookdeo said.

She said the overreach is bleeding many other areas, namely how permanent residents, Native Americans, and Puerto Ricans are getting picked up by ICE. In turn, Sookdeo said they’re thinking critically about what they can do to protect their communities.

Sookdeo added that the number of people losing status and thereby becoming undocumented “is growing.” This includes patients who had temporary protected status will soon be without status, Ukrainians in precarious situations, Afghans who are interpreters for the US military, and more.

“I think it’s important for us to be cognizant of what’s happening, but there’s a lot of good work we can do,” Sookdeo said.

The Trust Act And More

Fonseca Tapia said that C4D, as well as other advocates, are fighting to strengthen Connecticut’s Trust Act. Unanimously passed by the House and Senate in 2013, the Trust Act was a law to prevent local law enforcement from collaborating with ICE to deport people, according to Fonseca Tapia. It was later reintroduced to add additional protections in 2019.

He said that it came about due to community leaders and organizations realizing that the immigrant community lost all their trust in police departments due to raids in their areas like Danbury and New Haven.

Fonseca Tapia noted this includes the Danbury 11 incident, where a group of 11 undocumented immigrant laborers were picked up and deported at the bus station by Danbury’s Kenney Park in September 2006. He added that the Danbury Police Department collaborated with ICE to make it happen.

However, Fonseca Tapia said the Trust Act doesn’t have a legal mechanism for people who are wrongfully detained and wrongfully deported to have the right to take legal action.

Fonseca Tapia shared that this exact thing happened to him last October. He was pulled over by a police officer and told his license was suspended. He said that the officer returned from his car awhile later, only for three other police cars to show up. The officer asked for him to step out of the car while holding his gun.

“And I said, ‘this is how I die. This is how we die,’” Fonseca Tapia said.

He later learned that they were looking for another person. Fonseca Tapia said he gave this context because “imagine what happens to an undocumented person that doesn’t speak the language or realize they have rights.”

Fonseca Tapia encouraged people to tell their legislators to strengthen House Bill 7212, an Act Concerning the Trust Act, which will ensure consequences when the Trust Act is violated.

There were several other speakers at the event. This included Defense of Democracy Act Local NWCT representative Jackie Eaton, Newtown Action Alliance Co-Founder David Stowe, and Defense of Democracy Executive Director Karen Swoboda.

Beyond that, the floor opened for community dialogue. People were open to ask questions or talk about specific topics such as immigration.

Artist and Sandy Hook resident Julia Sikes-Provey had friends standing with her as she spoke, holding the art she made in support of the country’s dreamers.

Chris Vichiola, who is a member of the Human Rights Watch organization, raised his concerns regarding the potential privatization of Social Security and elimination of Medicaid. Vichiola said that he confronted State Representative Mitch Bolinsky and State Senator Tony Hwang about three weeks ago, asking what they’re going to do to protect the low income people of Nunnawauk Meadows. He said that “they couldn’t answer him.”

Vichiola said that the government is looking to eliminate Medicaid and privatize Social Security, adding “we have to work together to stop them.”

“I said to Tony Hwang and Mitch Bolinsky to stand up to these people, stand up to Trump, or you’re going to lose your elections when it happens next time,” Vichiola said.

Sandy Hook resident Jennifer Hensel also spoke at the event, saying “we’re at the point in history where kids in history class will say, ‘why didn’t they do something?’” She said the fire for change scattered across the country is only getting hotter and that they can, and should, spark change together.

After losing her daughter Avielle Richman in the Sandy Hook tragedy and her husband Jeremy Richman to suicide years later, Hensel said that she is mad that everyone is dealing with a takeover that’s “killing rights that we all fought for, and our forefathers fought for decades.”

“It takes 3.9 percent of the population to be vocal and start a movement,” Hensel said. “I have gotten so much pain in my life, so much destruction, and I’m willing to stand here to be a shield and a sword for my immigrant population ... We can do it.”

To learn more about CT Students for a Dream, visit ct4adream.org. To learn more about Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services, visit irisct.org.

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Reporter Jenna Visca can be reached at jenna@thebee.com.