City Official Under Probe For Reporting 73 Marriage Licenses To Feds

NEW HAVEN, CT — Thursday afternoon, Mayor Justin Elicker and health department director Maritza Bond announced that Patricia Clark, the Vital Statistics department registrar, was placed on administrative leave pending an investigation related to her actions, namely that she reported 73 marriage licenses as “questionable” to federal immigration officials.

Clark is the registrar for the office under the auspices of the city Department of Health, which maintains birth, death, and marriage events that take place in New Haven.

Elicker said that on Nov. 21, her supervisor learned that from the end of August to Nov. 20 Clark had flagged and reported to federal immigration officials 73 marriage licenses as “questionable.”

The mayor said New Haven has hired a company to investigate whether her action was in violation of Elicker's summer of 2020 order saying New Haven is a welcoming city. That order reads, the city is committed to the health and safety of all its residents regardless of their immigration status. And it forbids city staffers from using city resources to investigate, enforce, help or report people based on "race, gender, sexual orientation, religion or national or ethnic origin.”

Elicker said Clark had been told by state health officials that if she was suspicious of an immigrant marriage application, she should report it.

Patch obtained through the Freedom of Information Act emails from February 2023 where Clark, East Haven Town Clerk Lisa Balter and Kathleen Sehi of the state Department of Public Health’s Office of Vital Records discuss marriage licenses.

Clark had been denying licenses to “a significant number” of couples looking to marry in New Haven but who she turned away because they did not have birth certificates and sent them to East Haven, Town Attorney Michael Luzzi confirmed.

In the email, Sehi reminded Clark that, “in order to issue a marriage license, you only need photo ID of the individuals applying.”

Clark wrote: “We have had too many couples to count requesting marriage licenses that can't fill out the section for their parents' names, which is why we asked for birth certificates for those coming out of state or out of the country …” for marriage licenses that she said, “Staff is quite uncomfortable issuing.”

Clark said in that February email that she was "not made aware that we can contact immigration for the numerous marriages that the staff is quite uncomfortable issuing."

She noted in it that she was “under the impression that the registrar reserved the right to ask for more identification documents when necessary. We deemed it necessary to do so.”

Sehi reiterated that, “Only if the parties don't have photo ID then, according to the handbook, that's when you request two other forms of identification. If you're suspicious, you should have reported it, but you cannot deny the parties licenses.”

“As the number of referrals grew, Town Clerk Balter sought clarification on this issue,” Luzzi said, adding she was performing her job professionally and doing her due diligence. “Ms. Sehi confirmed that birth certificates are not required, and instructed the New Haven (vital statistics registrar Clark) accordingly.”