Dozens attend Passover Seder held outside ICE field office in Hartford
Immigration enforcement and the U.S., Israel and Iran war were some of the issues that took center stage at a Passover Seder in Hartford Tuesday evening.
The sidewalk Seder was organized by the Hartford Jewish Organizing Collective. It was outside the Abraham Ribicoff Federal Building on Main Street, which holds an ICE field office. Organizers decided to have it there to raise awareness about ICE activity in Connecticut.
“A Passover seder is a Jewish ritual that we commemorate every year in order to retell the Passover story of our liberation from ‘Mitzrayim’, which means both Egypt and the narrow places,” Daniella Hobbs, a co-organizer of the Seder, said. “We’re here to recognize the narrow places that we still experience today and hope to move towards freedom.”
The group is demanding the release of hundreds of people from Connecticut who were detained, according to an estimate by the Deportation Data Project.
“ICE we’ve seen has been ripping apart families, ripping apart communities, people have been dying in ICE detention centers,” Hobbs said. “All of these are just violations of our freedoms and our rights.”
ICE did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday, but has said they are enforcing federal immigration laws, arresting people who have violated visa terms or have criminal convictions. They have said that it has made communities safer.
Hobbs also noted that the war on Iran and Pres. Donald Trump’s threat to “end a whole civilization” conflicts with the celebration of freedom.
“As Jews, it’s important for us to stand up and say, we don’t stand for that,” she said. “We stand for freedom for all people, and that none of us are free unless all of us are free and that’s both here and in places like Iran.”
Trump has said the attack on Iran was to initiate regime change and create regional stability. The U.S. has agreed to negotiate with Iran to end the war during a two-week ceasefire, but it might not mean all military action is over, according to University of New Haven professor Ken Gray.
“The United States and Israel are fighting this war together but the end goal for the United States and the end goal for Israel may be different,” Gray said. “So at some point, Israel may go it alone as the United States decides that they are done.”
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