State lawmakers passed a bill, largely on party lines, limiting the actions U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement can take at courthouses and prohibiting state agencies from widely sharing state residents’ personal information.
Under House Bill 8004, state agencies are banned from sharing personal information like home addresses, workplaces or dates and times of court hearings and appointments. The bill will also codify a policy first enacted by Connecticut Supreme Court Chief Justice Raheem Mullins in September, which forbids ICE agents from making arrests inside state courthouses without a judicial warrant. The bill also prohibits law enforcement agents from wearing masks on courthouse grounds “unless medically necessary.”
Immigrant advocates who supported the bill said it addressed their concerns about federal agencies’ access to immigrants’ personal data but didn’t entirely resolve their anxieties about the recent surge in immigrant detentions.
Camila Bortolleto, a steering committee member with the advocacy group HUSKY for Immigrants, stood with a handful of people at the Capitol on Wednesday holding signs representing immigrants who had been detained by ICE in Danbury — many at the courthouse.
“ If Connecticut had passed this policy a couple months ago, these folks likely will not have been arrested by ICE,” Bortolleto said.
Sen. Gary Winfield, D-New Haven, said Thursday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had asked ICE to identify themselves after a series of people were found to have been impersonating ICE officers. The purpose of the immigration provisions in H.B. 8004, he said, was to ensure that people felt safe at courthouses and that the courthouses could operate efficiently.
“ It’s not about our feelings about police, our feelings about ICE. It’s about the people who are interfacing with our court system,” he said.
Rep. Steven Stafstrom, D-Bridgeport, echoed Winfield in a debate in the House of Representatives on Wednesday night.
“We’ve all seen the videos. It’s hard not to see the videos of folks being tackled, roughed up, windows being broken when court is in session,” Stafstrom said.
“When folks are walking into our courthouse, many of whom are not there as criminal defendants, many of whom are there as victims of crime, many of them are there as witnesses to crime. Many of them are there for divorce proceedings or to get a restraining order or to fight an abusive creditor or to seek justice in a landlord-tenant situation. That’s the majority of folks in our courthouse on a day in day basis,” Stafstrom said.
But Rep. Craig Fishbein, R-Wallingford, questioned whether the ban on courthouse arrests would have any meaningful effect. The bill prevents ICE from arresting people for civil violations, but Fishbein said that entering the U.S. illegally, as well as failing to register with the federal government, is considered a criminal offense.
Chris Llinas, an immigration attorney with offices in Hartford and Portland, told the Connecticut Mirror that Fishbein’s interpretation of the law was incorrect.
“Unlawful presence in the U.S. — overstaying a visa, lacking valid status, being in removal proceedings, etc. — is a civil immigration violation, not a crime,” said Llinas. “Most people ICE targets at courthouses are subject only to civil enforcement.”
Llinas said the bill would prevent ICE from arresting people who had overstayed their visas, people without legal status who had no criminal records, immigrants in removal proceedings, asylum seekers and people who were going to the courthouse as victims or as witnesses.
Republicans in the Senate said they were concerned that lax rules would allow immigrants who committed violent crimes to avoid deportation.
Sen. Stephen Harding, R-Brookfield, said he disagreed with the idea of stopping ICE from making arrests in courthouses. “ You’re protecting criminals. In many cases, the individuals that are going to the courthouse are facing charges, in some cases violent crime,” Harding said. “And you’re telling me that we’re going to keep these individuals in the country and keep ICE away from there. I mean, what logical policy is that?”
Bortolleto, of HUSKY for Immigrants, said her group was most concerned about data being shared by the Department of Motor Vehicles — since many immigrants hold drive-only licenses — and from the Department of Social Services, which provides health insurance for children and pregnant women without legal status.
On Thursday afternoon, Sen. Ryan Fazio, R-Greenwich, raised two amendments proposing changes to Connecticut’s Trust Act, which dictates the circumstances under which local law enforcement can cooperate with ICE.
Under the current Trust Act, law enforcement can only turn someone over to ICE if the agency presents a judicial warrant or if the individual has been convicted of a high-level felony. Fazio’s amendments would have expanded the exception to include all felonies or to those who had been either arrested or convicted for a high-level felony.
“These individuals who are convicted of serious crimes are being protected in the state of Connecticut,” said Fazio.
Both amendments failed on a party-line vote.
While lawmakers debated changes to state law, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong filed a joint amicus brief, with 18 other states, in a case against the Trump administration that’s proceeding through federal immigration court. The case challenges the Trump administration’s new policies on expedited deportations, which allow immigration officers to deport people who enter the country illegally without first giving them the opportunity to appear before a judge.
Formerly applicable only to immigrants who had entered the U.S. without inspection and were captured by law enforcement within two weeks of their arrival and 100 miles of the border, the Trump administration now has expanded that policy to include people who enter the U.S. without inspection who are detained anywhere in the U.S. and within two years of their arrival.
The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia paused the new policy this summer, saying it fails to give due process to people who may have been in the U.S. for an extended period of time, and it risks wrongful deportations.
Bortolleto said there were other proposals immigration advocates wanted that hadn’t made it into the bill, like allowing people to attend court hearings remotely and a commitment that the state will not use the National Guard for immigration enforcement. She also wants the state to fund health insurance through HUSKY for refugees, asylees, and other legally present immigrants who will lose eligibility for federally funded health insurance in October 2026.
Carmen Lanche, executive director of Comunidades Sin Fronteras, told CT Mirror that there were immigrants who were afraid to go to court. She said that children didn’t want to go to school out of fear that they wouldn’t see their parents again.
“We don’t want to live in fear. We don’t want our children, who are the future of this country, to grow up with trauma, because childhood traumas are carried into adulthood,” Lanche said. “We want children to be happy, healthy and to continue studying, and to not worry about these things that don’t have to happen.”
H.B. 8004 was taken up in a 2-day special session this week along with three other bills addressing housing, hospitals and an emergency state funding reserve.
The bill also carried a hodgepodge of other provisions, including an added 5-cent charge on phone bills for a fund for firefighters diagnosed with cancer. Republicans said they wanted to support the cancer fund but argued that it should be funded through the state budget rather than through a tax.
Additionally, the bill contained provisions pertaining to behavioral health services, including a requirement that insurers cover autism services for young adults up to age 26, a study to examine and identify gaps in programs available for children’s mental health, and another study of a Yale program for children with intensive mental health needs.
The bill passed the House 96-48 and passed the Senate 27-8, with three Republican Senators joining the Democrats Thursday evening. It heads now to the governor’s desk.
Emilia Otte is a reporter for the Connecticut Mirror. Copyright 2025 @ CT Mirror (ctmirror.org).