DANBURY, CONNECTICUT - OCTOBER 01: Undocumented Ecuadorian mother Andrea, 28, (R) walks her daughter Jazlyn, 6, to school on October 1, 2025 in Danbury, Connecticut. They arrived to class with Andrea's sister and her daughter, both also undocumented and living in Danbury. Andrea and her cousin Jennyfer made the decision to "self deport" with their children after their husbands were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and later deported due to their undocumented status. Volunteers with the immigrant support group Danbury Unites assisted them after their husbands were incarcerated, making the last two rent payments for the one room of a house where they lived. The mothers, unable to work and care for their children without spousal support, chose to return to Ecuador with the help of the aid group, whose donors purchased their air tickets to Quito and volunteers assisted with the logistics of moving. Andrea said she chose not to use the Trump Administration's app CBP Home, fearing that by sharing personal information with ICE, she might be separated from her two children during the "self deportation" process. Like many immigrant community aid organizations around the United States, Danbury United's Post-Disappearance Support Group strives to provide such vulnerable families with a modicum of safety while offering both emotional and tangible support by connecting immigrants to resources, regardless of whether they decide to stay in the U.S. or leave. Such groups have provided a lifeline to many immigrant communities currently living in fear across the United States, as ICE expands its operations with the express mandate of mass deportations. (Credit: Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
A week of intensifying immigration arrests in Danbury, Connecticut, has reignited a nationwide argument over how close federal agents can get to children on their way to and from school, with fresh, competing numbers emerging as recently as this past Sunday. The dispute lands as families in every major Latino metro this publication covers — Los Angeles, Houston, Miami-Dade, Chicago and New York — head into a second full school year without the enforcement-free "sensitive locations" that used to keep agents away from campuses and bus stops alike.
A week of mounting arrests in Danbury
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