More than 100 students, teachers, and immigrant rights advocates gathered outside of Southern Connecticut State University’s Buley Library Monday to speak up for a classmate who was detained by federal immigration agents off campus last week.
According to Connecticut Students for a Dream Executive Director Tabitha Sookdeo, the SCSU nursing student in question was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Middletown, on Tuesday, March 31. She said the student is currently being held in an ICE detention facility in New England and has an upcoming court date.
Sookdeo said she has been in touch with the student’s parents, who have asked for their daughter’s full name and other identifying information to be kept private for now. The student’s first name is Keyla. Sookdeo said that she does not know why ICE arrested this student.
Her parents are nervous, Sookdeo said. “She’s really scared,” she added. “She really just wants to get out” and come home. Sookdeo described the student as a hard worker, kind, dedicated to her studies, and someone who brightens every room she enters.
In an email statement sent to the SCSU community last Thursday, the public university’s president, Sandy Bulmer, wrote, “We are aware that one of our students has been detained by immigration authorities off campus and in another municipality. At this time, we are working to gather more information while respecting the privacy of the individual and their family. Importantly, there has been no report of ICE activity on Southern’s campus.”
In an email comment Monday afternoon, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed Keyla’s arrest by ICE “during operations” in Middletown on March 31. The unnamed DHS spokesperson identified Keyla as a “criminal illegal alien from Ecuador” and said that she has previously been arrested for first-degree criminal trespassing and disorderly conduct. Connecticut’s online court database, however, shows no criminal convictions or pending charges associated with her name.
The DHS spokesperson also said that Keyla entered the United States legally on Oct. 24, 2021, under a tourist visa that allowed her to stay in the U.S. for six months. “She illegally remained in the United States for nearly three years in violation of U.S. law. She will remain in ICE custody pending removal proceedings.“
ICE’s online detainee locator, meanwhile, states that Keyla is currently being held at the Strafford County Corrections center in New Hampshire.
Attendees at Monday’s rally held signs reading “F-ck ICE” and “Know your rights!” They chanted, “Say it loud, say it clear, immigrants belong here,” and, “No borders, no nations, stop the deportations.” They also distributed a QR code with a link to a GuFundMe page looking to raise money for the student’s legal fees.
Sookdeo said that organizers are also soliciting letters from Connecticut elected officials, university leaders, and classmates in support of the student’s release. Sookdeo helped organize a similar letter-writing campaign last year for an ICE-detained Wilbur Cross student named Esdrás Zabaleta-Ramirez, who was subsequently released.
At around 4 p.m. Monday, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro posted on X about how she is in touch with SCSU leaders to gather more information on the student’s reported detention by ICE.
Speaker after speaker on Monday — including co-emcees Justin Farmer and Sam Morrison, students and faculty from SCSU, and organizers from UNITE HERE 217, the New Haven Immigrants Coalition, and Unidad Latina en Acción, among other groups — called for the detained student to be released, for the university to support undocumented students, and for a mass mobilization against the Trump administration in response to the federal government’s immigration crackdown.
“The same movement that ousted the Gestapo from Minneapolis” can work here in Connecticut, said one of the rally’s speakers, a SCSU student named Tate.
“The politicians are not going to bring the change that we need,” said ULA’s John Lugo as he stood alongside Gladys Tentes-Pitiur, who spent 135 days in ICE detention last year. “The community is the answer.” He called for rallygoers to participate in a national strike on May Day to bring the country’s economy to a standstill in protest of ICE’s actions. “In the meantime, f-ck ICE,” he said to cheers from the crowd.
“We demand that our neighbor comes back home safely and to commit ourselves to keeping each other safe,” said Morrison, a SCSU student who is also a part of the New Haven Immigrants Coalition.
“You don’t have to be exceptional. We just have to have human rights and dignity for everyone,” said Farmer, a SCSU student who is also running for state representative. He spoke about being the son of a Jamaican immigrant. By the time he was 10, he said, three of his relatives had been deported.
Two SCSU first-years, Sitralys Nunez and Mia Cruz, joined Monday’s rally to support the student who has been detained — and all SCSU students.
“It’s quite scary,” said Nunez, an immigrant from Venezuela. She said she was missing her Spanish class Monday to stand in solidarity with her classmates.
Morgan Raila, a 21-year-old social work student at SCSU, said she too is frightened by the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigrants. “Treat people with kindness,” she implored.
Aizea Acosta, a 21-year-old SCSU student, said that she is the daughter of immigrants from Spain. Even though she doesn’t personally know the student who was detained, Acosta said, she felt compelled to show up Monday to show her support. “People are people,” she said, and everyone should be treated with respect.
This story was first published March 24, 2026 by New Haven Independent.