In Connecticut: More Than 15% of the Population Is Foreign Born.
By Don Stacom, Hartford Courant
Edited by Barbara Heimlich
Editor, Stratford Crier
With U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents seizing people in Connecticut and ordering rapid deportations, the nonprofit International Hartford is advising foreign-born homeowners and merchants to act in advance to protect their assets.
“In Metro Hartford, nearly 1,600 are at risk of immediate deportation, including at least 250 in the city of Hartford,” Art Feltman, executive director of International Hartford, told the city council this week.
“These individuals may have to abandon 1,000 owner-occupied homes in the city. This will lead to widespread job losses, shrink the tax base and most importantly, leave commercial corridors and residential neighborhoods pockmarked with vacancies,” Feltman said.
Feltman offers caution in Connecticut, where more than 15% of the population is foreign born. “Many immigrants hold green cards; they are revocable at the whim of an administration,” he told the council.
His organization provides business counseling and financial literacy training to immigrant-owned businesses, and gives micro grants of under $10,000 each to minority owned businesses. If those businesses are abruptly left without an owner, there’s a lot at stake, he said.
“The city or town loses property taxes, the employees lose their jobs,” he said. “And as a business support agency, we are concerned about the effect on the local economies. These businesses are paying taxes, they’re occupying space whether it’s a factory or storefront or restaurant or office. If the owner gets deported, it gets abandoned.”
“There are over 37,000 immigrant entrepreneurs in the state, and in most metro areas, any retail growth is from immigrant-owned businesses,” Feltman said.
Many immigrants in Connecticut are here as asylum seekers from Ukraine, Afghanistan or countries with famine, and they can be subject to deportation, advocates warn.
Feltman is one of several Connecticut people connected to the immigration field who are recommending people at risk of deportation take steps beforehand to preserve their property.
“I’ve never done so many powers of attorney as I’m doing now,” said New Britain attorney Adrian Baron, who has been a prominent civic leader in that city’s Little Poland section. “People are getting their will up to date. There’s a lot of fear in the immigrant community right now. There are a lot of green card holders who are afraid to travel to Canada.”
Glenn Formica, an immigration attorney in New Haven with more than 25 years experience, said he applauds Feltman’s idea for an outreach effort to reach non-citizens.
“It’s brilliant. Most of my clients are small entrepreneurs, people with small cleaning businesses or small construction businesses. I’ve had conversations with clients [saying] ‘don’t do this’ because it can lead to abuse if they’re under threat and take in a citizen partner (without planning and advance work), or hand the business over to another immigrant,” Formica said.
Attorneys and immigration activists for years have counseled immigrants who own property, particularly real estate or a business, to have an asset protection plan in place that could include a written financial plan, revocable trusts, a power of attorney, notarized business agreements and a schedule of lease, insurance, tax, mortgage or other payments that need to be made.
But the crackdown on immigrants has pushed the issue to the forefront in immigrant communities across the country.
“We’re seeing ICE surveillance and investigation. We’ve had ICE confronting people at the Mercado (on Hartford’s Park Street). People are scared. There’s a family here that built up a business, it has three restaurants, and the owners are worried,” Feltman said.
Feltman’s organization is trying to get funding to educate immigrant business owners in Greater Hartford about the specifics of preparing business affairs in advance of possible deportation.
