More than 1000 march in protest of illegal immigrant raids

NEW HAVEN — Not even the driving rain could stop more than 1,000 demonstrators from marching through the streets of New Haven in protest of recent raids in which 34 illegal immigrants were arrested.

Carrying signs that read "No human being is illegal" and shouting "Stop the raids," the protesters marched from Quinnipiac River Park in Fair Haven to City Hall in downtown, where a rally was held.

The raids came on the heels of the city’s adoption of a plan to provide municipal identification cards for both citizens and illegal immigrants.

Speaking at the rally, Mayor John DeStefano Jr. reiterated his support for that plan.

"Next week we start the first resident ID program in America," he said. "Everyone — documented of not — come back to your City Hall next month."

The remarks drew loud applause from the audience, which crowded into City Hall to escape the afternoon thunderstorm.

On June 6, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement stormed into the city, making 31 illegal immigrant arrests in the New Haven area. A few days later, three more people were arrested in North Haven.

ICE representatives said the raids had been planned for weeks and were not in response to the city’s groundbreaking ID card program. ICE said specific illegal immigrants who had ignored deportation orders were the target of the raids.

Many believe the raids were in retaliation for New Haven’s passage of the municipal ID program, just days earlier. One of the plan’s main goals is improving public safety by encouraging undocumented residents to cooperate with the police and not be afraid to come forward with important information relating to crimes.

Anna Lambert, an 11-year resident of New Haven who got her U.S. citizenship last year, said she was very upset about the raids.

I THOUGHT THEY JUST WANTED TO WORK HERE!!

There was something like 34 illegals arrested in New Haven, Connecticut.

So all the protest marchers came out in full force.

About a thousand of them.

Now they’re gonna tell me that the illegals are here to do the job that Americans don’t want to do. Like protest marching? But that seems to be the long-lost hippies’ favorite way to spend an afternoon.

They, the protesters, were carrying signs that said, “No human being is illegal.”

What a bunch of baloney. In the first place, every sovereign nation on the planet has the right to determine who and how many immigrants live within its borders.

It’s not a question of whether you’re a legal person or not. If you weren’t born in the United States, you aren’t a citizen.

If you aren’t a citizen, you can’t stay here and eat all our beans. And corn. And steak. And hot dogs.

If you aren’t a citizen, you can’t waltz into my kitchen and sit down at my dinner table and demand food. I decide who can come and go in my house.

We, the people of the United States, also decide who gets to come and go in and out of our country. We do that by employing border patrol agents.

And if the patrol agents get overrun, then I think we ought to go on ahead and let the national guard in the border states help out the border patrol.

And build the biggest, tallest fence we can.

No, that is not like the iron curtain. The intention of the iron curtain was to keep citizens in the country. Not keep immigrants out.

Big difference.

The citizens of the United States are not risking life and limb to try to escape from this country.

Everybody in every country in the world would love to live in the United States. There isn’t another country like it on the planet.

That’s because we’re good.

And yes, we are a Christian sovereign. And don’t you forget it for one minute. I don’t care what your religion is or how you practice it, you will never take Christianity away from the people of the United States.

And if you are an illegal alien, you have no right to be here. But you are a legal person who ought to be living somewhere — like in the country where you were born. That’s where you are a citizen. Not here. Not until you wait until you’re maybe 68 years old and have filled out reams and reams of forms and requests for admission.

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