In the wake of a four-day immigration enforcement operation that rocked Danbury last month, U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy is seeking answers from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security about what happened and the aftermath of dozens of arrests.

Murphy sent a letter Tuesday to DHS Sec. Markwayne Mullin with a list of questions to get a better sense of the federal immigration operations that ramped up in August.

He asked for the total number of arrests in Connecticut between Aug. 17 through Aug. 28 along with locations; if there were agents present from federal agencies other than ICE; and the immigration status of each person arrested, including those on parole. He asked for responses by Oct. 21.

“Last month, families and communities in Connecticut experienced mass immigration enforcement arrests across the state,” the Connecticut Democrat wrote. “To make matters worse, parents were reportedly arrested in front of their children, including at least one parent who was arrested just after their child boarded a bus for their first day of school.”

“As fathers,” he continued, “I hope we can both agree that children should not have to witness their parents being brutally arrested for civil immigration offenses.”

Murphy serves as the ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee, which oversees funding for DHS and ICE. But he wrote the letter in his capacity as a senator.

The four-day ICE operation in Connecticut resulted in 118 arrests. Earlier this month, ICE’s Boston Field Office confirmed that number and listed the charges facing only a handful of those arrested, which included sexual assault against a child, assault, weapons charges and drug dealing. In his letter, Murphy asked Mullin for “the conviction or pending criminal charge for each person arrested in Connecticut during the specified time.”

Murphy has repeatedly decried the presence of ICE officers at school bus stops, and while Trump administration border czar Tom Homan said he was unaware of such arrests, video released by Danbury United for Immigrants appears to show such events taking place.

When asked on CNN last month whether he’d look into the incident in Danbury regarding a school bus stop, Homan said he’d make an inquiry to the Department of Homeland Security.

“Now, did they arrest somebody at a bus stop? I’m not aware of that, but ICE is out there to enforce law against those that have been ordered removed by a federal judge,” Homan told CNN after saying no arrests have been made at elementary schools or hospitals. “And especially if they’re a criminal or if they’re a national security threat, there’s no safe harbor for them in this country.”

In his letter to Mullin, Murphy specifically asked about Homan’s commitment to make an inquiry and inquired about “the status of that investigation.”

But DHS disputed Murphy and other Connecticut officials’ accounts of the alleged incident regarding a school bus stop. A spokesperson for the agency said ICE arrested a 28-year-old from Ecuador on Aug. 26 during its operation in the state, saying agents stopped a vehicle occupied only by the man, and that a kitchen knife was found in the car’s center console. The agency said it didn’t occur “in the vicinity of a bus stop.”

The DHS spokesperson said ICE confirmed the child is “under the guardianship of her mother” and the man arrested will “remain in ICE custody pending the outcome of his removal proceedings.”

“Any claim that ICE targeted parents at a school bus stop is FALSE,” the DHS spokesperson said in the statement. “Unsurprisingly, Senator Murphy’s narrative is a work of fiction aimed at scoring cheap political points at the expense of our officers, who are facing a 1,300% increase in assaults against them, a 3,200% increase in vehicular attacks against them, and an 8,000% increase in death threats against them.”

Mullin, who was a senator from Oklahoma before he was tapped to lead DHS, is a former colleague of Murphy’s, and both sat on the Senate Appropriations Committee. They clashed at a hearing over the summer when Murphy asked whether DHS would follow court orders. Both Murphy and U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., voted against Mullin’s nomination to lead the agency.

Murphy has been a major proponent of seeking changes to ICE’s practices, an effort that got a lot of support among Democrats in the wake of two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens. He stepped up his calls for such reforms since last month’s ICE surge in his home state.

Last week, the Connecticut senator proposed a trio of bills that would prohibit agents, officers and employees of DHS or those acting under authority of the agency from conducting operations in child care facilities, school bus stops and playgrounds. In his request submitted on Tuesday, Murphy also asked DHS for the number of arrests made at or near bus stops, playgrounds and daycare facilities and the rationale for that.

During government funding negotiations, Murphy said he wouldn’t support new funding for DHS unless certain reforms to ICE were attached to it.

Some of the guardrails demanded by Democrats included tightening rules around arrest warrants, ending roving patrols, ensuring independent investigations, and new protocols for ICE agents, such as banning face coverings, wearing body cameras and displaying proper identification.

But they never came to fruition, and DHS was in a shutdown for more than two months. Both parties blamed each other for the breakdown in negotiations. To fund ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Republicans ultimately pursued a party-line bill under the budget reconciliation process. That allowed them to fund ICE and Border Patrol with nearly $70 billion through the end of Trump’s term without reforms.

Blumenthal has also pushed for such changes to ICE and Border Patrol’s tactics. He held a fifth public forum on Tuesday afternoon as congressional Democrats seek to cast a light on the practices and conduct of federal immigration agencies under the Trump administration. Tuesday’s shadow hearing focused on deadly shootings involving federal immigration agents with testimony from victims’ family members.

But getting some of these legislative pushes through a divided Congress faces incredibly steep odds, since similar legislation and ICE reforms stalled over the past year. Plus, Congress has a very small window to legislate before the end of the year.

The House is out of session through the election, and the Senate could also leave town as early as this week. Congress won’t return until after the midterms. And Murphy is seeking answers from Mullin by mid-October — which is when lawmakers will still be out of town for the month-long recess.

CT Mirror reporter Laura Tillman contributed to this story.