IRIS’ Facebook post on Jan. 8. Federal immigration authorities arrested three people in New Haven last week — including two people affiliated with a local immigrant rights group — as part of a “targeted enforcement operation” against immigrants accused of committing various crimes. An unnamed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson told the Independent on Saturday that, on Thursday, Jan. 8, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “conducted a targeted enforcement operation in New Haven” which resulted in the arrest of three “criminal illegal aliens.” That statement continued: “Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, if you break the law, you will face the consequences. Criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in the U.S.” In a separate email statement on Friday, city police spokesperson Officer Christian Bruckhart confirmed that ICE had made three arrests on Jan. 8. Bruckhart said that city police were not involved in the arrests, and did not have any details on who was arrested or why. Two of the three people arrested by ICE were facing pending criminal charges in state court. According to the state judicial database, none of the three appears to have entered pleas or been convicted of any crimes. Meanwhile, two of the three arrested by ICE last week are affiliated with the local nonprofit Integrated Refugee Immigrant Services (IRIS), which posted on Facebook on Thursday that ICE had “abducted two members of IRIS’ community” that day. In a phone interview Monday, IRIS Executive Director Maggie Mitchell Salem confirmed that two of the three people arrested by ICE last Thursday are indeed members of the “IRIS community.” (She declined to say which of the three are IRIS community members, or how they are connected to IRIS.) One of the people ICE arrested last Thursday is a 29-year-old Guatemalan man who most recently lived in North Haven. The DHS spokesperson described him as a “criminal illegal alien from Guatemala charged [with] a felony of sexual assault.” State court records show that he had been scheduled to go to court at 121 Elm St. on Jan. 8 — the same day he was arrested by ICE — for the latest hearings in two criminal cases in which he faced a mix of felony and misdemeanor sexual assault charges. He had not yet entered pleas to those charges, which stemmed from a June 2025 arrest and pertained to alleged offenses that occurred in 2019 and 2020. He had been released from custody on a $25,000 bond for one case, and on a $10,000 bond for the other. Two arrest warrant affidavits obtained by the Independent on Monday state that city police had received a Department of Children and Families (DCF) notification in September 2024 of suspected child sexual abuse regarding two juvenile victims. While parts of the affidavits are redacted, the documents indicate that the alleged sexual abuse took place while the man was living in New Haven. The four charges included in one case are second-degree sexual assault, fourth-degree sexual assault, and two counts of risk of injury to a child. The two charges in the other case are risk of injury to a child and fourth-degree sexual assault. A second person arrested by ICE in New Haven on Jan. 8 is a 34-year-old woman from Afghanistan. The DHS spokesperson described her as “a criminal illegal from Afghanistan charged with multiple felonies and misdemeanors of assault, risk to injury to a child, disorderly conduct, family offense, and cruelty towards a child.” State court records show that she has four pending criminal cases which are next slated for a hearing on Jan. 21. She has not yet entered pleas in any of those cases. Because all four cases have been statutorily sealed by the court system, this reporter could not independently verify what specific charges she faces. A third person arrested by ICE in New Haven on Jan. 8 was described by the DHS spokesperson as “a criminal illegal alien from Ecuador charged with multiple felonies and misdemeanors assault, public disorder crimes, obstruction, DUI, violation of a court order and false imprisonment.” This reporter was not able to find any criminal cases pending in the state court system associated with the suspect name provided by DHS. “These are highly sensitive cases and we trust in the outcome of the judicial process,” IRIS’ Mitchell Salem said on Monday when asked about Thursday’s ICE arrests. “We always want to see those who are accused of crimes able to have legal counsel and have the full benefit of a system that is based on the innocence of the person who is charged until they’re actually convicted.” Mitchell Salemn repeated a concern that many in the immigrant advocacy community have raised over the past year — that ICE arrests of people who are showing up to court to face pending charges will only deter immigrants from going to court, and even calling the police for help. “These kinds of actions mean fewer people will report crimes, even immigrants who are here with status,” she said. “They are not going to report crimes for fear for themselves and for the person that they’re accusing of the crime. It does not make us safer.” The post ICE Nabs 3 Immigrants, 2 From IRIS appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less