The Hartford restaurant owner whose detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was the subject of a contentious press conference Monday has been released from custody, the offices of Congressman John B. Larson and U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said Friday.
Seyo Cecunjanin, a resident of West Hartford and the owner of Portobello, returned home Thursday night, 12 days after he was arrested in West Hartford by federal immigration agents and detained at the Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls, R.I.
Cecunjanin emigrated to the U.S. in 1997 from Montenegro, a province in the former Yugoslavia that was affiliated with Serbia before becoming independent.
According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, he entered the country illegally on a fraudulent passport in March 1997 and has been the subject of an order of removal issued six months later by an immigration judge.
Arrests by ICE agents surged in the final days of June, with more than 10,000 people detained nationally over a span of five days.
The circumstances of Cecunjanin’s release from ICE detention and what happens next regarding his immigration status was unclear Friday.
Larson and Blumenthal made the release public in a press statement and on social media.
“Our letters, protests, and work behind the scenes vindicated his cause. Seyo’s son, Emir, tells me he’s ‘doing great.’ As well, he deserves to be,” Blumenthal said in an emailed statement. “His courage and faith are a lesson to all of us on this 250th national birthday.”
In a post on Facebook, Larson said, “We were so relieved to get the call we’d been hoping for from Seyo Cecunjanin last night, letting us know he was back home in West Hartford.”
Larson, Blumenthal and other elected Democratic officials called for the businessman’s release at a press conference organized by Larson outside West Hartford’s town hall Monday.
They were challenged by a conservative talk radio host, Reese Hopkins, and heckled by a Republican candidate and others who complained the press conference was premature, since they had incomplete information at that point about the circumstances.
Blumenthal’s position then and now was the same: Whatever immigration issues Cecunjanin is facing, there was no reason for arresting him at gunpoint and then detaining him. He is seeking permanent status, and he has left the country and returned with the permission of immigration officials.
“ICE seizing and detaining him was cruel and unconscionable,” Blumenthal said in his statement Friday. “He was never a flight risk, or a danger to anyone. I’ll support his efforts to gain permanent legal status and more.”
Representatives for DHS and ICE could not be reached Friday, a federal holiday. On Monday, DHS confirmed that Cecunjanin had left the country and returned with the permission of immigration authorities, but an agency representative described that as a mistake made during the Biden administration.
“Cecunjanin has made a mockery of our immigration laws on several occasions for more than two decades,” the unnamed agency representative said in an emailed statement. “DHS is working rapidly and overtime to remove aliens like this from our streets and to their final destination—home. Under President Trump and Secretary Mullin, criminal illegal aliens are not welcome in our country.”
Markwayne Mullin is the secretary of homeland security.
The Associated Press contributed reporting.
