As the president tried to tighten enforcement of immigration laws, one Connecticut mayor said his city will be cooperating with federal authorities.
“We’ve always worked with ICE, we’re going to continue to work with ICE but only on criminal conduct," Danbury's mayor Mark Boughton said.
Many immigrants living in Danbury said they are looking for more communication from the city to find out what level of cooperation they would have with federal authorities.
Boughton said the city will cooperate with locating undocumented immigrants if federal authorities, such as Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), approach them for help.
NBC Connecticut spoke with Mexican immigrant, David Sanchez, who owns a restaurant in town and while he agrees with the mayor’s stance, he said there’s a lack of communication about what that cooperation means. He also said there’s so much fear in the immigrant comunity, he is losing business.
"My business has been quiet and down since then because I think a lot of people I know is scared, is scared because of that," Sanchez said.
Albert Collado, originally from the Dominican Republic, owns a tax preparation service in Danbury. Collado agrees there needs to be more communication with the city – and the lack thereof has made some of his clients nervous. Just last week, 20 people came in to obtain a power of attorney, he said.
"So that they can get power of attorneys to anybody else that will take care of their kids in case that they’re stopped while their working or in the street,” Collado said.
Boughton stressed that people would not be stopped on the streets.
“What we don’t do is stop people on the street and ask them for papers or look to deport people willy-nilly because that’s not whats been prioritized by the department of homeland security,” Boughton said.
Of the 90,000 people living in Danbury, an estimated 5,000 people are undocumented immigrants, according to the city.
