On a Sunday morning earlier this month, people of all ages gathered at First and Summerfield Church, where a sign at the entrance reads “You are welcome here.” The church’s promise to welcome is multifaceted: it serves as a spiritual sanctuary for seekers of faith and also as a physical sanctuary for immigrants who may be at risk of deportation.

This February, the United Methodist Church — with which First and Summerfield is affiliated — along with many faith denominations across the country, joined a lawsuit to ensure that houses of worship are protected against raids by Immigration Customs Enforcement, or ICE. 

A 2011 Department of Homeland Security memo had prohibited authorities from entering “sensitive locations” like churches for years — yet Trump is challenging past precedent.

For decades, the sanctuary movement in New Haven and the surrounding areas has been led by Yale Divinity School alumni who are leaders at several of these churches. The movement focuses on supporting immigrants, whether it be through housing them or providing legal or health services.

“What we do in this world matters, the lives that we live, the way that we treat ourselves and other people, matters,” said Vicki Flippin DIV ’08, who served as the pastor at the First and Summerfield Church amid increased deportation raids in 2017. “If somebody is terrified that they’re gonna be separated [from] their children, it is obvious to me what faith has called me to do.”

As the second Trump administration ramps up deportations and anti-immigrant rhetoric, often fueled by Christian nationalism, sanctuary churches embrace faith to “welcome the stranger,” New Haven faith leaders told the News.

Taking a risk in opening up their church

The sanctuary movement is not new. American churches began sheltering immigrants in the 1980s, during the Reagan administration, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio GRD ’19 writes in her book “The Undocumented Americans.” Then, a group of churches took in nearly 500,000 refugees fleeing Central America. 

But offering sanctuary has carried legal risks. In 1985, the federal government indicted 16 people, including a Protestant minister, two Roman Catholic priests and three nuns, with “conspiracy” to smuggle undocumented immigrants into the United States.

More than 30 years later, during the first Trump administration, Gini King DIV ’84, a retired leader of First Congregational Church in Old Lyme, talked to her congregation to become a sanctuary church.

“I believe that my faith tells me that Jesus was a community organizer,” King said. “He broke the law time and time again, and he was non-violent. That’s what I want to be. That’s who I want to be.”

Jamie Michaels, who took over as lead pastor at First and Summerfield in 2022, also admitted that there has been some fear in the church about the consequences that might befall churches that take in undocumented immigrants. However, she thinks that these concerns pale in comparison to the risks and dangers that immigrants face.

“We have a heritage to lean on, of communities and people who have stood firm in their faith even in the face of those kinds of threats,” Michaels said. “We were never promised that following the love of God and walking on that path would be easy or safe. So we trust.”

For Michaels, taking risks to help those in need is not a political stance but rather a central aspect of her faith.

After taking the job in 2018, Flippin similarly learned that her role as pastor would come to encompass much more than the job description of a conventional faith leader. 

Flippin, Michael’s predecessor who led First and Summerfield during the first Trump administration, recalled feeling concerned by the president’s rhetoric against immigrants as ICE ramped up deportations across the country. For Flippin, housing immigrants, who she felt were labeled as “throwaway people,” in the church where she served as a spiritual leader felt essential to oppose this rhetoric.

“It was a declaration in opposition to rhetoric that treated people like they were not important to their community and not important to our country,” she told the News in February. Yet, the movement to house people in churches to prevent their deportation was not an easy feat. “It was a really labor-intensive move,” she said.

Flippin detailed the congregants’ efforts to donate funds for the immigrants’ mortgages, do their laundry, provide showers, offer food and care for their children. She said it was a “hugely intense community effort” to show that these people were important — regardless of Trump’s rhetoric.

The sanctuary space at First and Summerfield is currently open, although church leaders do not publicize whether anyone is currently residing there due to safety concerns.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, ICE officials would have to receive a warrant signed by a federal judge to enter a private space within a house of worship.

Glenn Formica, a New Haven attorney who has worked on legal cases involving sanctuary in churches, said that the lawsuit involving New Haven congregations — which opposes Trump’s recall of place of worship protection in immigration crackdown — challenges the “fear narrative” that he believes the current presidential administration is “aggressively” advancing.

The Biblical basis of sanctuary 

Rabbi Herb Brockman of Congregation Mishkan Israel in Hamden, part of the sanctuary movement, compared the current deportation to that of the Nazi persecution of Jews.

“We were hunted down in the 1930s,” said Brockman, referring to the Nazis’ method of deporting Jews in Europe to concentration camps. “As Jews, we are to remember that.” 

He emphasized that while the Nazis committed many atrocities, there were also 24,000 “righteous gentiles” who risked their lives to hide Jews and protect them. When he teaches about the Holocaust, he wants people to know that there are people who resisted the Nazis.

Besides his historical motivations for joining the sanctuary movement, Brockman also cited its biblical basis: the Torah mentions welcoming the stranger 36 times. 

He also spoke of the idea of “cities of refuge,” which were six cities that were set aside for an individual who accidentally killed someone to reside in and be protected from revenge-seekers before a legal trial. 

“This isn’t new,” he said.

Flippin spoke about Matthew 25 as a part of the New Testament that she has always clung to when thinking about the sanctuary movement. At a panel at St. Thomas Moore in February about immigration, panelists also spoke about this verse. The verse asks: “When I was a stranger, did you welcome me?”

“If I see somebody suffering, like somebody is terrified that they’re going to be separated from their children, it is obvious to me what faith calls me to do,” said Flippin.

Shaping a progressive movement to counter Christian Nationalism 

Flippin also spoke of the varied political conclusions that believers might reach based on their reading of certain sections of the Bible.

“People are complex, which you learn when you get to know folks who have different views from yourself,” she said.“We believe in Matthew 25, but we just kind of interpret it a little differently in different arenas.”

In the United States, conservatives and liberals alike have set out to define what role religion should play in politics. Many Christians on the political right subscribe to strands of Christian nationalism — an ideology that is based around the idea that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation and should therefore be a Christian nation into the future.

Vice President JD Vance LAW ’13 spoke publicly on his views on immigration as a Catholic at a town hall in September prior to the election. He said that there is a “Christian idea that you owe the strongest duty to your family.” As such, he argued, American leaders should not be overwhelmingly concerned with protecting citizens of other nations. 

“It doesn’t mean that you have to be mean to other people, but it means that your first duty as an American leader is to the people of your own country,” the Vice President said. The town hall was part of Christian nationalist preacher Lance Wallnau’s election-season revival tour, which aimed to make a theological defense of many of the Trump-Vance immigration policies.

Many who have opened up their churches to undocumented immigrants view their interpretation of Christianity as counter to interpretations like Vance’s that are often used to defend deportations. 

“Christian nationalism and other movements like that take the concept of the Kingdom of God and just write it onto a really coercive, oppressive idealism,” said Michaels. “For me, the kingdom of God is a world in which all people can be whole, and all people can be well.”

Michaels said she believes that using scripture to defend agendas of oppression and hate is antithetical to what her faith calls her to do. She views the Bible as a collection of sacred words rooted in love and self-sacrifice for all of creation. This biblical interpretation drives her in her work to provide sanctuary to immigrants. 

Flippin echoed Michaels in that she views Christian nationalism as not in line with her interpretation of scripture.

“I don’t see anything scriptural about it. I feel that it is nationalism, patriotism, and nativism using scripture and the intense emotionality of religion and ritual for its own end, which I find to be blasphemous and offensive,” said Flippin.

Bishop Thomas Bickerton, who serves as area resident bishop for the United Methodist Church in the New England and New York areas, believes that right-wing Christianity is not a “biblical” Christianity, but a secular one. 

“I do not believe that the Bible equates itself with secular society, nor does it equate itself with policies and procedures that are contrary to biblical truth,” Bickerton said. “Biblical truth is not necessarily trying to find a passage in scripture that meets what you believe. It’s quite the opposite.”

Flippin, who left First and Summerfield to become the Associate Dean for Student Affairs at Yale Divinity School in 2022, believes it is important to raise the next generation of faith leaders as competent in “alleviating suffering in the world.” 

She encouraged Yale students to open their minds to this mission.

“It’s really important to notice the incredible long-term efforts that are going on in this city,” said Flippin. “As much as you can emotionally manage it, step into those spaces that are not made for Yale students, but where you have to be there for other people.”

First and Summerfield Church is located at 425 College St. 

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McInnis’ speech made four references to the city, mostly gestures made in broad strokes that characterized the city in partnership with Yale, braving challenges and marching forward together. In comparison, Former University President Peter Salovey in 2013 dedicated three minutes in his speech to an address on town-gown collaborations.

“Together with our home city of New Haven, we have weathered the storms of every moment, the ‘breeze of public criticism’ and the winds of change,” McInnis said.

The presidential inauguration came as higher education institutions across the nation face criticism from the federal administration, a decline in public trust and potential funding freezes. Several of Yale’s peer institutions have already faced funding cuts.

McInnis previously told the News that while she originally hoped to lay out a more ambitious vision plan in her speech, given the current political backdrop, she chose not to. Instead, her speech would reflect on Yale’s history and values, as well as muse on its future.

Yale’s outreach to New Haven extended beyond McInnis’ speech, however. In the week before her inauguration, the Yale Alumni Association and United Way of Greater New Haven led dozens of volunteer events, open houses and local partnerships to celebrate the town-gown community, drawing over 250 Yale and community volunteers.

McInnis and Salovey on town-gown

In his inauguration speech more than a decade ago, Salovey sought to probe “new directions in [Yale’s] alliance with New Haven,” calling for fresh entrepreneurial and intellectual partnerships.

In particular, he encouraged students to contribute more to the “local idea economy.” After graduation, he hoped, “they can remain in New Haven and play active roles as civic, arts, and business leaders.”

He ended his New Haven segment with several driving questions for his term: “How can we create a local ecosystem that supports entrepreneurs? How would a one-hour train between New York and New Haven change the intellectual and educational biosphere of our campus and city?”

Though the University’s relationship to New Haven could be at times tense as late as 2020, when Mayor Justin Elicker rose to the mayoral office, the signing of a 2021 agreement to increase Yale’s voluntary contribution to the city ushered in a wave of friendly public appearances between public officials and University leaders. In February, Elicker called on McInnis to increase the voluntary contribution.

Last week, in her speech, McInnis recounted how she “found a second home in New Haven” during her time as a graduate student, spending her leisure time exploring the city’s pizza spots and staying up late at Toads.

Near the end of her speech, McInnis quoted a New York Times article that named New Haven among the “52 Places to Go in 2023.” In it, Alexander Lobrano, travel writer and Connecticut native, promoted the city’s history, culture and food scene.

“There’s a reason the New York Times called us a ‘home to tinkerers and rebels.’ We don’t sit still. We don’t sit back,” McInnis said, following a segment referring exclusively to Yale. “We are a university in motion, always seeking out the next frontier. It’s why New Haven has become a global hub of biotechnology and innovation.”

Yale is not mentioned in Lobrano’s article, but McInnis told the News that she saw “Yale as part of New Haven” and that is why she said “us.”

Elicker, a spokesperson from UNITE HERE and two New Haven alders did not respond to requests for reactions to McInnis’ address and the Elm City’s role in the inauguration weekend. 

Like Salovey, McInnis also emphasized Yale and New Haven’s close unity in her speech.

“Hand in hand with the city of New Haven, we will create a vibrant, thriving community where our mission — our purpose — is renewed with each new member we welcome, each discovery made and idea exchanged, each new graduate who carries Lux et Veritas into the world,” she said. 

Inauguration community programming reached hundreds

Leading up to McInnis’ inauguration, the Yale Alumni Association and United Way of Greater New Haven organized New Haven Community Days, a week of volunteer activities and open houses to commemorate the bond between Yale and New Haven.

The volunteer teams assembled 540 toiletry kits for Haven Free Clinic, distributed 200 pounds of clothing donations, served food to 351 families, and wrote 60 handwritten letters to seniors, according to Mara Balk, Yale Alumni Association’s associate director for volunteer engagement.

Overall, the groups organized 18 volunteer activities on campus and in the city, including a book drive, gardening work days and read-aloud events for children.

Community Days programming also featured 43 open houses across the city that welcomed all visitors — like a “New Haven all-access pass,” YaleNews wrote. Open houses at Harkness Tower and various art galleries — Yale University Art Gallery, 63 Audubon Gallery and NXTHVN — saw “lively turnout” or were at capacity, according to Alexandra Daum, associate vice president of the Office of New Haven Affairs.

On the first community day, McInnis visited local vendors at CitySeed’s Farmers Market and read to young students with New Haven Reads. Ahead of her inauguration, McInnis also spent time showing her family around town, she told the News.

According to Balk, McInnis explicitly requested there be a volunteer component in her inauguration activities.

The success of the Community Days programming was not unprecedented or uncommon, Balk noted, but rather characteristic of the “mutual respect” and history of collaboration between Yale and New Haven volunteer agencies.

On April 3, McInnis spoke at Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce’s annual meeting, and she hosted the first Seton Elm-Ivy awards ceremony of her term last Tuesday.

“Yale’s and New Haven’s successes are inextricably linked. I look forward to building on our progress and strengthening our centuries-old bond, and I will be sharing more details as we do this work together,” McInnis wrote to the News.

Since July 2024, McInnis has served as the University’s 24th president.

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Leaders and advocates representing the city’s food banks and soup kitchens made the request during a Board of Alders budget workshop Wednesday evening in City Hall. The organizations have begun to experience the fallout from reductions in federal food assistance spending.

“There’s a perception that the community will take care of itself when it comes to food assistance, and that’s just not the reality,” Steve Werlin, the executive director of the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen, told the News.

The food kitchen has recently received less food than normal from the Connecticut Foodshare, which depends partly on federal money, Werlin said. He expects DESK’s stockpile of food to dwindle “at some point in the next few months” without a new source of funding.

Alycia Santilli — co-chair of the Coordinated Food Assistance Network, or CFAN, the coalition that made the proposal — told the Finance Committee that 27 percent of New Haven residents currently face food insecurity, compared with 18 percent statewide. She added that nearly two-fifths of Elm City residents reported receiving groceries or meals from food assistance providers.

Coalition members developed their “legislative agenda,” totaling $993,000, before the 2024 election, Werlin said. They presented it to New Haven community services officials in the winter as Mayor Justin Elicker was preparing his budget proposal.

Elicker announced his $703.7 million budget proposal for the 2025-26 fiscal year in late February, saying he took a “primarily status quo” approach amid the unpredictability of the Trump administration’s funding for local programs. The proposal did not include CFAN’s proposed spending.

Werlin and Santilli both said they hoped alders would be sympathetic to their requests in the wake of the Trump administration’s cuts. They stressed that the city has not usually provided regular funding for food assistance.

 “I know that a lot of alders really care about this issue,” Santilli said, “and they probably weren’t fully aware that the city doesn’t really spend money in this way.”

Elicker said Thursday in a statement provided by his spokesperson that he has proposed directing almost $150,000 in federal Community Block Development Grant money to food assistance organizations, including $35,000 for DESK.

He also said the city planned to allocate about $890,000 from two federal grants to Haven’s Harvest, a nonprofit focused on reducing food waste — but that the grants are now frozen.

“The cuts by the Trump administration to food banks and meals programs are devastating,” Elicker said in the statement. “We would always like to do more, but we can’t make up the difference from the federal government.”

About a dozen food assistance advocates attended Wednesday’s aldermanic meeting. Four of them testified directly to the alders, and some held signs saying, “FOOD IS A HUMAN RIGHT” or “Hungry for Change!”

Alder Anna Festa of East Rock’s Ward 10 said alders face a difficult balancing act as they refine the mayor’s proposed budget.

“It’s going to be some very difficult decisions, because if we contribute to every little thing, every nonprofit that’s not getting aid, that cuts into the budget, which means higher taxes for the residents, which means for some of those folks, they’ll now have to decide themselves if they need to go to the food pantry or not,” Festa said.

New Haven has over 50 food pantries and soup kitchens, Santilli told the alders.

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It was early in 1986, and Mayor Biagio DiLieto confronted delays in housing funds he was expecting to flow to the city from the federal government. President Ronald Reagan, trying to curb government spending, had deferred paying out $8 billion to cities — including $638,000 due to New Haven that year from a Community Development Block Grant, as well as housing subsidies for nearly six thousand city residents.

“New Haven depends on these programs for its poor and elderly and for its revitalization efforts,” DiLieto said in a press release after the city filed a complaint that February in federal district court in Washington, D.C.

The city won the case on summary judgment and won an appeal. Now, 39 years after New Haven took the Reagan administration to court, Mayor Justin Elicker signed the city on as a plaintiff in two lawsuits against the Trump administration during its first two months.

The first recent lawsuit takes on President Donald Trump’s crackdown on so-called sanctuary cities that refuse to bolster immigration enforcement. The second one challenges his moves to freeze environmental grants — and the complaint, filed this month on behalf of six cities and eleven organizations, cites the 1987 appellate ruling that reaffirmed New Haven’s victory over Reagan. For New Haven, it’s a precedent twice over.

Graham Provost, an attorney with the nonprofit Public Rights Project that helped assemble the new lawsuit, said in a statement provided by the group’s spokesperson that the complaint’s authors “chose which cases to cite based on their legal relevance. And it is an added benefit to point to a situation involving one of our plaintiff cities.”

The legal issue in the Reagan administration’s 1986 appeal concerned the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, which restricts the president’s authority to withhold or delay congressional appropriations. In particular, after the Supreme Court had invalidated the law’s one-house legislative veto power over presidential spending deferrals, could the president still defer spending by himself?

No, the district and circuit courts concluded. At least not for the president’s policy reasons, as opposed to routine “programmatic deferrals” in the course of executing a law, according to the unanimous three-judge appellate panel — which included Judge Robert Bork, just six months before Reagan would announce his ultimately failed nomination to the Supreme Court.

It’s that technical distinction between policy and programmatic spending delays, outlined in the 1987 D.C. Circuit ruling in City of New Haven v. United States of America, that comes up briefly in New Haven’s latest joint lawsuit against the Trump administration. But in both cases, the city emphasized the urgent real-world implications of a dispute about the separation of powers.

“Much more is at stake here than the political machinations between two branches of government operating at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue,” New Haven argued in a 1986 filing to the district court.

Neil Proto, a New Haven native and former Justice Department lawyer who represented New Haven in the housing funds lawsuit, told the News that it was part of a broader push by DiLieto to revive the city’s urban center and housing options. DiLieto was also waging a multifront legal battle against a proposed shopping mall in North Haven that he feared would gut his city’s downtown.

Where Reagan pulled back on some spending, Trump has taken a more radical approach to disrupting the federal government, Proto said. Trump has signed a torrent of executive orders, several of them threatening funding streams to cities. The Environmental Protection Agency has put in limbo over $30 million in grant money promised to New Haven, some of which would normally be paid as reimbursements for projects already underway.

“We are doing what we can in New Haven to confront this climate crisis,” Elicker said at a March 20 press conference about the environmental funding lawsuit. “Unfortunately, we have a president of the United States right now that is doing just the opposite and illegally stymieing and setting up roadblocks to our nation’s ability to address climate change.”

There are other differences between the 1986 and 2025 lawsuits, besides the presidential actions at issue.

Elicker has made a wide-ranging push to counter the Trump administration, through municipal policies and through messaging frequently focused on championing progressive “values.” He struck a defiant tone in his State of the City address last month, describing New Haven’s multicultural character as a rebuttal to Trump’s vision for the country.

DiLieto was less liberal and less ideologically driven, according to Steve Mednick, a lawyer who served on the Board of Aldermen, now called the Board of Alders, representing Westville’s Ward 26 from 1982 to 1991.

“He wasn’t part of the progressive movement. He was pretty middle of the road,” he said about DiLieto, who was New Haven’s police chief before running for mayor. The desire to sue the Reagan administration, Mednick said, “came down to the fact that we were going to lose substantial sums of money.”

New Haven is receiving free legal support for the two current lawsuits from Public Rights Project, the California-based organization that is mobilizing municipalities across the country to challenge Trump policies.

San Francisco and Santa Clara County, California, spearheaded the sanctuary city lawsuit, which had three other plaintiffs when it was filed in California in February and later added 11 more plaintiffs — all of them cities or counties. The Southern Environmental Law Center joined with Public Rights Project to assemble the climate funding lawsuit, filed in South Carolina. Elicker is the only New England mayor to participate in either lawsuit, at a time when many local leaders are lying low to stay out of Trump’s crosshairs.

In the clash with the Reagan administration, New Haven stood out even more. As the National League of Cities, or the NLC, looked for cities to join forces against the housing money delays, DiLieto had another idea, Proto recalled.

“He didn’t want to just piggyback on top of a dozen other cities. He wanted to be first,” said Proto, who had been a political strategist for DiLieto. “That was one of my purposes, to ensure that that happened, and we did” — by one day.

New Haven submitted its complaint on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 1986. On Feb. 20 came a lawsuit on the same subject from a bevy of plaintiffs, including the NLC and four members of the House of Representatives — among them New Haven’s Rep. Bruce Morrison and New York’s Rep. Chuck Schumer, now the Senate minority leader. New Haven moved to consolidate the cases the next month, retaining its pride of place in the case name.

David C. Vladeck, the lead lawyer for the NLC and other plaintiffs, later wrote that he had “serious reservations about the City’s decision to file its own case.”

That comment came in a letter to the editor of the New Haven Independent — a weekly newspaper that stopped printing in 1990, succeeded since 2005 by a news website of the same name — in which Vladeck defended Proto’s integrity from the newspaper’s suggestion that he had milked the case for profit while playing a redundant role. The original Independent story, headlined “Case pays off for Proto,” reported that the city paid Proto $10,000.

No doubt, DiLieto cared about New Haven’s prominence in the proceedings. In a memo to the mayor after the district court argument — preserved along with other documents from the case in Proto’s papers at his alma mater, Southern Connecticut State University — Proto reported that he had let the NLC attorney speak first. “As I indicated before, however, I have retained the option of going first in the Court of Appeals, if necessary,” he wrote.

In the end, Proto said, he stood up first at the appellate oral argument to say that New Haven would adopt Vladeck’s arguments, before ceding the podium to him.

By the time the decision came down from the D.C. Circuit on Jan. 20, 1987, Proto had already been officially commended by the Board of Aldermen for his “tremendous efforts” toward the lower-court triumph. And, the prior July, the contested funds had already been distributed after Congress intervened with a supplemental appropriations bill.

DiLieto stepped down in 1989 after a decade as mayor, and died in 1999.

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At LW Beecher School, Mayor Justin Elicker spent around 20 minutes reviewing his budget proposal, announced late last month, mostly under the implicit goal of explaining and justifying a proposed 2.3 percent increase in the mill rate.

About two dozen residents had gathered to hear the mayor, who presented a lengthy slideshow of graphs and charts. Elicker laid out his primary goal of maintaining city services in the face of federal uncertainty and acknowledged, among other topics, the decrease in the city’s taxable properties and “a real crisis” in the public school system.

But, by and large, attendees — the majority of whom were affiliated with U-ACT — were not interested in minute fiscal and policy details. Instead, over two-thirds of the meeting was dominated by issues related to homelessness.

Jorell Alford, a New Havener affiliated with U-ACT, decried the lack of public bathrooms in New Haven.

“Unlock the bathrooms in these facilities,” she said. “I can go into a fine restaurant, get free Wi-Fi, AC, heat, a lounge area, but I got to pay to pee. Mayor, I challenge you today: build these bathrooms. I challenge you today Mayor, you cannot use your bathroom in your office. I challenge you to walk across the street and use those same porta potties that you said is clean for us to use.”

In response, Elicker said that portable toilets on the New Haven Green — which Alford referred to as “disgusting” — continue to face challenges, including complaints of prostitution and abandoned needles.

Soon after, Mark Colville — U-ACT’s lead organizer — accused the mayor of stonewalling efforts to build public restrooms on the Green. He said that in raising concerns over “human excrement,” Elicker was “setting up a victim-blaming process” that allows the police “to make people disappear who are poor.” A heated back-and-forth between Elicker and Colville lasted for over five minutes.

Minutes later, a shouting match erupted between several U-ACT members and Joe Fekieta, a longtime Elm City resident and one-time candidate for Ward 4 co-chair, who suggested that homeless residents should be “brought” to nearby psychiatric hospitals.

To be sure, two residents asked questions around the budget itself. Tory Sansing, who recently left her job as a New Haven Public Schools teacher, voiced her concern over paraprofessionals’ low wages. Elicker explained that their contracts operate on a different timeline from the budget process.

Meanwhile, Mark Gimpel, who has a background in financial engineering, asked about the city’s debt — which City Budget Director Shannon McCue said is currently around $700 million — and voiced his concern that the mayor “keeps adding $30 million a year.” Elicker had earlier explained that the city borrows $60 million every two years. 

“We’re kicking the can down the road,” Gimpel told the News after the town hall. 

Despite the contentious nature of much of the meeting, Elicker told the News that he enjoys this style of public participation.

“I actually really like these budget town halls, because you never know what’s going to come up, and it’s an opportunity for us to have a little bit more of an in-depth conversation on different issues,” he said.”

The Board of Alders must approve the city’s budget by June 2.

The post Elicker faces heated debate at budget town hall appeared first on Yale Daily News.

Car after car on George Street blew their horns in support of the coalition of labor unions and immigrant rights groups marching to protest Trump administration policies. One driver waved a red scarf from their window as a show of solidarity. Another shouted “I love this” as she drove by. Students waved at the crowd from the windows of a passing school bus. 

“I want to protest the tyranny of one individual,” Jack Cardello, a teacher at The Sound School in City Point, told the News. 

Cardello had a simple message for President Trump: “Think about the kids. Think about the future.” 

After a few lively speeches and chants from students, community college professors and organizers, the march followed a police escort and the Hillhouse High School marching band down Church Street to the New Haven Green, where the marchers — now around 200 — gathered around the flagpole across from City Hall. 

At Gateway, Cynthia, an undocumented student at Wilbur Cross High School and organizer with CT Students for a Dream, addressed the crowd through an interpreter. 

“I ask you to join me in search for justice, equity and human rights,” she said. “We cannot continue living in fear. We cannot continue to be treated as if we were less than others. We are people.”

In recent months, fears around immigration enforcement in New Haven have often centered on schools. The Trump administration has already signaled that they will no longer exempt schools from immigration enforcement raids. 

The administration has also proposed eliminating the Department of Education, which provided around $24 million in grants to New Haven Public Schools in the last fiscal year alone, according to district spokesman Justin Harmon. 

Education funding has also been a focus of budget negotiations in Hartford. Last month, Governor Ned Lamont proposed adjustments to the state’s fiscal guardrails to support modest increases in education funding and historic investments in early childhood care, in his biennial budget address. 

NHPS administrators, local unions and activists in particular have emphasized the dire need for state funds to support basic special education services. 

While the governor’s budget provides an additional $50 million for special education in the state, none of these funds would be spent until the 2026-27 fiscal year. Advocates say funds are needed this school year. 

Last week, the state’s General Assembly passed $40 million in emergency funding for special education in this school year while the governor was out of the country. Lamont vetoed these provisions on Monday, a move he justified as critical to preserving the state’s fiscal guardrails.  

On Friday, Mayor Justin Elicker announced his budget proposal for the next fiscal year. The proposal included a $5 million increase for NHPS, but fell short of the $23.2 million requested by NHPS superintendent Madeline Negrón. 

On Tuesday morning, Lamont announced a compromise with state legislators to reinstate the emergency funds, using interest on federal pandemic aid to pay for them.

Hours later, protestors stood around the flagpole outside New Haven City Hall chanting “We win when we fight” and “No justice, no peace.” 

“We are here because we want to send a clear message to our leaders in Washington, D.C. that we will stand up and fight back to protect our kids and protect our schools,” Leslie Blatteau, president of the New Haven Federation of Teachers, told the crowd. “They’re trying to give billionaires tax cuts while they decimate the Department of Education, and we’re not going to let it happen.” 

Ambar Santiago Rojas, a student at the Engineering and Science University Magnet School in West Haven and a member of the Semilla Collective, described the harmful effects of proposed cuts to the Department of Education. 

“The proposed federal education cuts would devastate students like me. They would gut special education programs, slash funding for low-income schools, take away resources from English learners, and make college even more unaffordable for working-class families such as mine. These cuts aren’t just numbers. They mean losing teachers, losing support, and losing opportunities that could change lives,” she said. 

Students in New Haven rely on public schools for food, education and safety, Santiago Rojas said. 

“This fight is not just about school budgets. It’s about who gets the change to succeed and who gets left behind,” she told the crowd. “When politicians attack our public schools, they are attacking us.” 

Ernest Pagan, an NHPS parent and the president of Carpenters Local Union 326, told the News that he has confidence in city and state leaders, but is deeply concerned about threats to education programs at the federal level. 

For Pagan, the march was a symbol of New Haven solidarity and commitment to supporting teachers. 

“This is a New Haven thing, this is what we do,” he said. “This is not a fight that we could win on our couches. We’ve got to come outside, and we’ve got to come to the streets.”

NHPS serves around 19,000 students in New Haven.

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At a City Hall press conference announcing the budget, Elicker said that the tumult surrounding federal funding — on which New Haven relies heavily — resulted in a budget proposal that is “primarily status quo.” With enormous federal cuts a legitimate possibility, the budget may need to be amended midyear, he added. 

Elicker’s proposed General Fund budget totals $703.7 million, a modest 2.6 percent increase from last year’s approved budget of $679.1 million. His budget proposal also includes a 2.3 percent increase in property taxes, which Elicker touted as “the lowest tax rate … in the past two decades” with the exception of the last two years.

“It’s a time of tremendous uncertainty,” Elicker said. “We’ve all felt that in the last month, there’s been a lot of chaos coming from Washington, D.C. In the city of New Haven, we’re proud to say that we’re charting a different course.”

Emphasizing fiscal caution and promised stability, the mayor explained how he hopes to successfully navigate uncertainty from Washington.

The proposed budget includes $62.6 million in Special Revenue Funds — funding beyond normal revenue, a large portion of which comes from the federal government.

New Haven relies on federal funds that are now in jeopardy to address long-standing challenges, such as the state of the New Haven Public Schools, Elicker said. 

His budget proposal includes $15 million in additional funding for NHPS facilities to help address a maintenance crisis in the school’s buildings. This brings the budget’s total spending on education to $213,263,784, an increase from $208,263,784 in the last fiscal year.

The New Haven Federation of Teachers — the union representing NHPS teachers — recently filed a complaint with Connecticut OSHA over allegedly unsafe conditions in NHPS schools.

“You name it, our buildings are struggling with it,” Elicker admitted after the press conference, mentioning HVAC issues and mold.

But the mayor was adamant that New Haven has “done [its] part,” and Connecticut “must do more.”

Elicker also emphasized his proposal’s increased investment in public safety, including full funding for the new police contract and support for the continued installation of security cameras across the city.

The proposed budget would also create 13 new city positions, including building inspectors to keep pace with “significant economic development activity,” parking enforcement personnel, and a new chief data officer.

These proposed positions are part of a larger initiative to modernize government in New Haven.

The city is eager to “use technology to our advantage,” Shannon McCue, New Haven’s new budget director, told the News.

The budget adoption process at City Hall lasts three months. In this time, the Board of Alders Finance Committee will hold workshops, deliberations and public hearings to amend and approve the mayor’s proposal. During last year’s negotiations, $1.3 million was whittled off Elicker’s proposed budget.

After the press conference, the mayor acknowledged a tension between New Haveners’ perception of the city government’s inefficiency and the reality that, as he put it, “things cost money.”

“Oftentimes, when I talk with residents, they say, ‘You should be doing this more, you should be doing that more.’ But they don’t always connect it with the fact that we have to pay for these things … We’re always trying to thread the needle to make sure that we’re not putting undue burden on residents with taxes, but also delivering on services,” Elicker told the News.

The mayor praised the city for having “five straight years of balanced budget,” improving bond ratings and building up rainy day reserves.

Elicker will hold two town halls on March 18 and 26 to discuss his budget proposal with residents.

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The Connecticut General Assembly Housing Committee received testimony on 13 bills, including omnibus legislation to maximize equitable housing opportunities, proposed reforms to fair rent commissions and efforts to address rising rates of homelessness statewide.

Several representatives from the City of New Haven offered testimony, including Mayor Justin Elicker, who has described housing as one of his top priorities for state policy this year. He spoke in support of House Bill 6893, which would allocate $33.5 million in state operations funding to programs that “assist homeless persons.”

Elicker said New Haven would use this funding to uplift the city’s numerous partner organizations who support unhoused residents. He cited the Greater New Haven Coordinated Access Network, a coalition of agencies, medical providers and nonprofits that assist people experiencing housing crises.  

Between November 2023 and November 2024, according to Elicker, the city’s verified unsheltered population more than doubled from 257 to 633. 

The hearing follows a wave of protests against the city’s management of its ongoing housing crisis, including claims that shelters are failing to accommodate all unhoused people. 

Both Elicker and Eliza Halsey, New Haven’s community services administrator, testified that the city needs at least 500 new units of “permanent supportive housing,” and that they currently lack the funding to address these needs on their own. Elicker added that while shelters and warming centers are helpful short-term options, the city needs the state’s support to create stable solutions. 

“Many people struggling with homelessness right now are coming to that from very different reasons,” Elicker said. “A lot of the challenges we’re seeing are people that are struggling also with mental health and substance abuse disorders. It’s not just affordable housing that is going to help the situation. The supportive component of that is crucial to people having a long-term pathway to access.”

The committee also heard testimony on Senate Bill 12, which would “promote fair and equitable housing opportunities in every community in the state.” The legislation is in concept form — only containing two lines of text — and would encompass housing development of all kinds across the state, including affordable construction.

State Sen. Martin Looney, who represents New Haven and serves as Senate President Pro Tempore, is the leading sponsor for SB 12. He explained that high rents and unaffordable housing have limited Connecticut’s economic development, contributed to unfair evictions and exacerbated poverty.

“We are short of housing for the lowest-income people who, in many cases, are homeless because they cannot afford rent or cannot find anything to rent,” Looney testified. “We also know that people are unable to find affordable starter homes. We also don’t have enough of a mix and diversity of affordable housing in communities throughout the state. And we don’t have enough housing, period.”

Looney made reference to Mandy Management, a housing company that owns 4,000 units in 800 buildings across the Greater New Haven area, and said that landlords that have monopolized the market are able to hike up rent and force evictions, leaving tenants with few options. 

The Committee also considered a number of bills to reform Fair Rent Commissions, municipal bodies that address claims of landlord abuse and unfair rent increases. 

Wildaliz Bermúdez, the executive director of New Haven’s Fair Rent Commission, spoke in opposition to a bill that would require commissions to operate under the same procedural regulations as state agencies.

“The over-formalization of Fair Rent Commissions would hinder functionality and make recruitment difficult,” Bermúdez said. “Placing more administrative procedures on Fair Rent Commissions, with no plans to increase funding, only further strains already-burdened Fair Rent Commissions.”

The Housing Committee will hold another public hearing on Tuesday.

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Along with establishing a new Center for Inclusive Growth and introducing several tax offsets, the 2021 agreement was historic in including the highest-ever voluntary contribution from the University to New Haven. According to the University’s Office of New Haven Affairs, Yale makes the largest voluntary payment to a single home city of all universities in America.

The University has given New Haven $23.2 million every year, an increase of $10 million. The total voluntary contribution during the six-year agreement will equal $135.4 million.

2026 may seem far off, but Mayor Justin Elicker believes it’s time to begin discussing potential increases in Yale’s voluntary contribution to the city. Negotiations for the 2021 agreement took over a year.

“It’s clear that we need to start rolling up our sleeves and start talking about the future of Yale’s payments to the city,” he said. “Yale made a very, very large step forward under the leadership of Salovey. My strong view is that it should take additional steps in helping out the city.”

Elicker described the nature of early conversations about voluntary contributions as “regularly scheduled meetings,” saying that McInnis is “always very responsive.” McInnis echoed this, describing them as “working closely.”

Ward 15 Alder Frank Redente, who represents part of Fair Haven, also believes that though Yale has been a good partner to the city, it can be an even better one.

“This city is in need, and especially now, in this climate facing the prospect of federal funding freezes,” Redente said. “[Yale] has the capabilities to make real, substantive change in this city.”

The importance of voluntary contribution can’t be understated, according to Redente. 

He added that by increasing contributions, the University could help “plug holes” in the city’s finances. 

“Programs and all that are great, but money talks,” Redente said. 

Jack Callahan ’80, senior vice president for operations at the University, recalled his pride at reaching the “finish line” of the voluntary contribution agreement in 2021.

“I firmly believe that there are more ways for us to work together … than there is for either side trying to extort either support or money from the other,” Callahan said. 

Callahan will retire this year, and he is hopeful that the agreement, along with the Center of Inclusive Growth that it started, has set the tone and laid the foundation for further collaborations. 

“All of us understand that the city’s future financial stability is important for not just New Haven but for Yale,” Elicker said. 

The current agreement was announced in November 2021. 

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On Tuesday night, leaders of New Haven Rising and UNITE HERE unions reflected on a year of successes and setbacks. They called on New Haven and Yale to support citizens during a period of uncertainty and economic hardships. Hundreds of attendees filled the pews of Trinity Temple on Dixwell Avenue, with lines of people spilling out the doors.

The Solidarity Summit was led by New Haven Rising, a community organization that advocates for racial, economic and social justice, and UNITE HERE unions, including Yale’s Locals 33, 34 and 35 and Local 217, as well as Students Unite Now.

Marks, New Haven Rising director, opened the event with a rousing call for solidarity and strength in the face of federal political upheavals. The crowd booed as speakers listed President Donald Trump’s recent directives in office — such as an attempt to freeze federal funds and the deletion of important datasets accused of promoting D.E.I. — and criticized his embrace of the “billionaire class.”

“The truth is that we’re heading about as far away as we can from Dr. [Martin Luther] King’s vision,” Marks said. “We are here, headed towards a place of resentment, hopelessness, a place that becomes cruel and violent, a place where the wealthy buy their way to power, a place where we become more divided, a place where we grow tired from just getting by.”

Peppered throughout a dozen speeches, speakers updated attendees on union progress in New Haven and drew attention to issues such as a lack of affordable housing, wealth inequality and fears of immigration crackdowns.

The summit’s mood oscillated between celebration and somberness. 

Omni workers with Local 217 recalled their triumph of settling a contract with the hotel last September after hard-fought negotiations. Adam Waters of Local 33 celebrated how after facing 30 years of “union busting and retaliation from the University,” the union achieved a landmark contract in December 2023 that raised wages and enhanced healthcare provisions for graduate workers. New leaders, Lisa Stevens, Local 34’s president, and Gwen Mills, president of the international UNITE HERE organization, both expressed excitement for their new roles. 

The celebration was extended to city officials as well. Marks and several speakers thanked the UNITE HERE-affiliated alders who walked the picket line with them and appeared at the summit. Mills praised the recent bravery of state representatives, particularly Rep. Rosa DeLauro, amidst federal policy uncertainties. 

“The Connecticut Democratic Party should lead the whole freaking world,” Mills said.

But speakers at the summit were also bracing for a tumultuous year. Jennifer Chona, a Democratic Town Committee co-chair, recalled when her family immigrated to New Haven, whom she believes to be the first Colombian family in the city. Now, she said, immigrant families fear even going outside and bringing their children to school. Last month, dozens of anti-immigration flyers were littered across the East Rock neighborhood.

Mareika Phillips, a key leader for New Haven Rising, shared how, as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, she and her loved ones have been used as “a tool for hate and division.”

“When we are tricked into blaming differences in race, religion, immigration status, romantic orientation or gender for our woes, they have a freer hand to focus on how to overwork us, raise prices and keep us down,” Phillips said. 

Many speakers also called on Yale to increase its financial and developmental contribution to the city. 

Marks emphasized Yale’s “debts” to New Haven, saying that the institution profited from slavery and blocked the first American Black college from finding a home in New Haven. Representatives of Locals 33, 34 and 35 all criticized Yale’s tax-exempt status, the University’s insufficient contributions to local education and the inequitable benefits of their biotech investment. There’s a biotech boom happening in the city, but “it’s a boom for whom?” Marks questioned.

“We know that Yale University is hoarding money, and they want us to think that they are poor,” Tyisha Walker-Myers, chief Local 35 steward and President of the Board of Alders, said to the crowd, “They want us to think that our jobs are not worth the money that they pay us, and we know that’s just not true.”

Phillips stressed that “we have a big year ahead of us.” 

Local 33 President Adam Waters believes that elected officials and employers like Yale must now decide: to stand “on the side of poor and working people, … on the side of justice” or to take the side of “corporations, billionaires and right-wing authoritarians who want to dismantle democracy.”

State Senator Martin Looney and Mayor Justin Elicker were present at the event but did not speak on stage. After the speeches, though, attendees could go downstairs and eat dinner while meeting their elected officials.

In the past, the summit has been called “Unity in Action” and was held specifically in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. This year, after deliberations, it was rebranded as the “Solidarity Summit.” 

“Whatever affects one affects all of us indirectly,” Marks said, recalling an iconic line from King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” 

Ellen Cupo, Ward 8 alder and member of Local 34, spoke of the transformative power of unionizing to the News after the event. After finding out she had a brain tumor last year, she was grateful for not only the healthcare support her union’s negotiations had won in the past but also for the support of her “union family.”

Marks ended the event by asking attendees to help fight to pass SB 8, a state bill that would enhance protections for workers while striking. 

“The elected leaders stood with us on the picket lines. Now is our chance to stand with the elected leaders and create legislation that’s going to help us build more unions,” he said.

“Now look around. Let’s see who’s in the room and who’s ready to organize,” Marks said, “We ain’t going nowhere.”

The oldest union present was Local 35, which has been organizing since 1941. 

Correction, Feb. 6: The article has been updated to remove a quote that was said off the record.

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