New Haven Police Chief, Francisco Ortiz, and I, mayor of New Haven, Connecticut, were in a meeting with about forty residents and clergy. We met in the community room of one of our neighborhood public libraries to talk about public safety issues. The library was chosen as the place for the meeting because residents view it as “neutral” territory. Clergy were present as a signal of trust—you see, we were meeting with undocumented city residents.
Undocumented residents were becoming targets for street robberies and home invasions. This dilemma brought us together as this presented an obvious public safety issue. Our Police Department was concerned about the failure of victims of crime and witnesses to come forward and talk to our community police officers. These communities were isolated from financial services—thus they carried large sums of cash, making them attractive targets for criminal predators. We worked to engage them and bridge communication gaps that were only allowing criminals to get away with their actions.
Now, I’m sure it appears that there is nothing new about engaging the community regarding trust and cooperation with the police. What is new is that New Haven, like hundreds of other cities and towns around the nation, has become home to a significant undocumented resident population. In our case, we estimate these residents comprise 10 percent of our total population—a number that is growing. The increasing reality is that these residents are having children who are U.S. citizens, that they make up a critical component of our work force, and that they share the basic values of America—a willingness to work hard and a deep aspiration to see that their children have a better chance to succeed than they did.
And, there is one more reality. These residents bear the mark of being undocumented because of the spectacular failure of the federal government to come up with a sensible border and immigration policy for the nation. This is a failure that none of us can reasonably expect Washington to do something about any time soon. So, we decided to take action for New Haven, because we couldn’t afford to wait for Washington to achieve positive change on this issue.
