The House Democratic majority advanced legislation Wednesday that would create a legal tool to ensure that municipalities abide by Connecticut’s Trust Act, closing what advocates saw as weakness in a law intended to protect immigrants.

Included in the bill revising various criminal statutes is a provision allowing “any aggrieved person” to seek an injunction against a municipality or its agents, including police and school employees, that do not follow the Trust Act.

Without the provision, advocates say, municipalities can ignore the state law that limits the circumstances in which police and others can alert federal agents to the location of an undocumented immigrant or detain them for deportation.

The bill would not provide recourse to a migrant detained after a municipal official violated the Trust Act; an injunction would apply to future cases. If found in violation, a municipality would have to pay the plaintiff’s court costs and legal fees.

The legislation, House Bill 7259, passed the House on a largely party-line 96-51 vote that highlighted the wide divide between Democrats and Republicans on deportations in the years since the original Trust Act was unanimously passed during the Obama administration in 2013.

House Minority Leader Vincent J. Candelora, R-North Branford, who voted for the 2013 law, said the current bill broadened the reach of the Trust Act to other municipal officials not enumerated in the previous versions, and it could expose them to legal costs.

“It’s not enough that municipalities and our public safety cannot communicate with ICE for them to do their job. They’re now going to allow these same individuals to sue our towns and cities,” Candelora said.

Rep. Steven Stafstrom, D-Bridgeport, said the original bill, a revision passed in 2019 during the first Trump administration and the current proposal all are intended to ensure an undocumented immigrant will feel safe reporting a crime or seeking aid from police without fear of being turned over to ICE. 

At the same time, local authorities must honor any court-issued warrant seeking custody of an immigrant or hold them for ICE if they are arrested on one of a list of serious charges, Stafstrom said.

“We’re trying to strike the right balance,” Stafstrom said.

The reach of the Trust Act and the politics surrounding immigration have changed since 2013, and Republicans elected after their GOP colleagues voted for the original law were scathing in their appraisal of the latest revision and what preceded it.

“The Trust Act is a travesty. It is an insult to the people of this state. The only purpose that the Trust Act serves is to hide criminals from law enforcement,” said Rep. Doug Dubitsky, R-Chaplin, who was elected in 2014.

Rep. Craig Fishbein, R-Wallingford, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, questioned the original intent and name of the Trust Act, a measure described 12 years ago as engendering trust by immigrants in local law enforcement.

“A lot of times these bills get wrapped in a package, a public relations term,” said Fishbein, who was elected in 2016. “It really should be called the Anti-Trust Act. Do we trust the government to use the statutes that are in place to protect us?”

The anti-commandeering clause of the Constitution bars the federal government from forcing local and state authorities to act as agents of the federal government, meaning they are under no legal obligation to report encounters with undocumented migrants.

Stafstrom said the Trust Act reassures immigrants and keeps law enforcement focused on their primary duties.

“The intent and goal of the Trust Act was to make sure that our local law enforcement was focused on prosecuting crimes and protecting the citizens of Connecticut for offenses that occurred In the state of Connecticut,” Stafstrom said.

Rep. Tom O’Dea, R-New Canaan, complained that the new bill could put municipal officials in jeopardy of facing federal prosecution, as has happened to a judge in Wisconsin.

The judge, Hannah C. Dugan, was accused of actively obstructing the federal authorities, not simply refusing to assist them, by allegedly directing an undocumented immigrant down a hallway away from the agents. She denies any wrongdoing.

Stafstrom bore the responsibility of responding to Republicans who criticized the bill as drawn to frustrate ICE agents trying to lawfully do their jobs.

But Rep. Farley Santos, D-Danbury, rose to offer a personal perspective as, most likely, the only member of the House who once was an undocumented immigrant, albeit one brought to the U.S. from Brazil as a child.

Too much of the debate, he said, focused on criminals, not the people like his parents who fled poverty, overstayed a tourist visa on a trip to the U.S., and built a life. He said he thought of the girl in Danbury who told him her fears of coming home one day to find her parents gone.

“They are the next doctors, they are the next entrepreneurs, they are the next public servants,” he said. “I urge my colleagues to have some compassion.”