Protest at the Wyatt: As ICE deportations intensify, so does community resistance

“We are here to demand freedom for all of our immigrant siblings unjustly held at the Wyatt and to get loud so they can hear us and know that we are fighting for them.”

On Tuesday, May 13, the Rhode Island Deportation Defense Coalition learned that Rosane Ferreira de Oliveira, a Brazilian woman who was kidnapped by ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) in Worcester, Massachusetts, was being held at the Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls, Rhode Island. The Rhode Island Deportation Defense Coalition includes the Providence Chapter of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), AMOR (Alliance to Mobilize Our Resistance), and the Olneyville Neighborhood Association (ONA). In response to the detention, the Coalition held an emergency mobilization on Thursday, May 15, outside the Wyatt that included the Worcester Chapter of the PSL.

“Rosane,” wrote organizers, “joins too many of our people who have been taken in the last months — G.M.G., our Venezuelan neighbor who was kidnapped at the barber shop where he worked in Pawtucket; Vanhhatdy, our Lao community member detained at an ICE check-in; our Dominican neighbor from Parade Street; and too many more.”

All the videos and photos on this page are courtesy of and copyrighted by reporter Phil Eil. Here’s the video:

“So many of our family members, community members, and neighbors are locked up inside the cruel and brutal Wyatt Detention Center right now,” said Maya, from the Providence Chapter of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. “We are standing here to defend our immigrant siblings against kidnapping and deportation.

“For too long, immigration policy has been a way to control people for the benefit of our wealthy oppressors. The wealthy of this country have always needed imported cheap immigrant labor. They’ve worked to divide, control, and stratify black and white workers through slavery, discriminatory guest worker programs, and mass deportations to maintain that system of oppression.

“We are here today because too many of our community members have been caught up in the immigration system - in this dragnet that ICE is using to sweep up and kidnap our community members. From Pawtucket to Providence to Central Falls to Worcester and all parts of this country, we are demanding: Free them all!

“Today is Nakba Day. It is the day of the catastrophe for the Palestinian people when their lands were first cleansed more than 75 years ago, and now it has been more than three months of total siege, starvation, and closure of aid, after more than 18 months of escalated genocide against the Palestinian people. We have to remember that this fight is linked to the fight for immigrant rights, that our students have been targeted for aligning themselves with Palestine, and faced with deportation themselves. It goes to show that the deportation machine is not merely being used to divide workers. It’s also being used to try to silence us and the cutting-edge people’s movements that are fighting back against the U.S. Empire and its cruel and brutal infinite wars, which are drawing so many billions of dollars that could be used to feed our families.

“They want to silence the people, but we have the power to free them. In the last few weeks, we freed Mohsen Mahdawi, Rumeysa Ozturk, and Badar Khan Suri - all students who had been locked up unjustly for their participation in the Palestine struggle. It shows that when we fight, we win.

“When we fight we have the power to bring our people home. The distinction between legal and illegal immigrants is between who the capitalist class has decided are most profitable and favorable to their racist empire. We don’t care about the status of our community members. They came here, uprooted themselves from their homes because they had to, and we will fight to keep them here in our community - in their community. We are here to demand freedom for all of our immigrant siblings unjustly held at the Wyatt and to get loud so they can hear us and know that we are fighting for them.”

“I’m here today to demand the release of our community members, neighbors, and loved ones,” said Laura, from the Worcester Branch of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. “One week ago today in Worcester, 21-year-old Augusta Clara had just left home with her three-month-old baby and her 17-year-old sister when ICE stopped their car. The agents immediately launched into threats. They told Augusta that she may be placed under arrest and that they weren’t allowed to leave a baby in the hands of a minor. They warned that she had better call the baby’s grandmother and have her run over to take custody.

“After receiving her daughter’s frantic call, Rosane Ferreira De Oliveira left her home to pick up her granddaughter. Soon after, she was in ICE custody. She had been their target from the beginning. They had no intention of detaining Augusta. These monsters used Rosane’s daughters and grandchild as bait.

“Rosane’s neighbors did not make her abduction easy. Dozens of concerned community members poured onto Eureka Street to record and intervene. They demanded to see a warrant - demands that were ignored. They put their bodies on the line and formed a human chain around Rosane, shielding her. Eventually, it broke through, but the ICE thugs were still frustrated and greatly outnumbered. So they called to who they knew they could count on for help: the Worcester Police Department.

“A dozen or more police arrived on the scene. They brutalized community members who were trying to protect their neighbor, leading to the arrest of Worcester school committee candidate Ashley Spring. They threatened to arrest Augusta, Rosane’s 17-year-old daughter, who was wrestled to the ground by several police officers twice her size, rubbing her tear-streaked face into the asphalt as they handcuffed and arrested her, all while ensuring ICE could make a clean getaway.

“Outrage over the assault on our community was felt in Worcester instantly. On Friday, in the pouring rain, we flooded Main Street. Scores of us marched to demand ICE out of Worcester and that the Worcester Police Department stop colluding with ICE. On Sunday, scores more protested at City Hall. On Tuesday, there were scores more still - even after the city deemed our presence a security concern and shut down City Hall in an attempt to block public participation at the city council meeting we were all there for.

“But it’s not enough to be angry. We have to be organized. The events of the last week have brought a new sense of urgency and unity to community organizers in Worcester. Now, we’re uniting under the cause of defending our immigrant neighbors. We’re working together to raise awareness of and volunteers for Luce, the statewide ICE hotline and rapid response task force in Massachusetts, which played a pivotal role in the community response on Eureka Street.

“We’re working together to distribute Know Your Rights materials. We’re working together to organize and mobilize our community, but it doesn’t start and end in Worcester. It doesn’t start and end in Massachusetts or Rhode Island. We can’t let the local battles we’re fighting stay local. After all, ICE abducted Rosane in Worcester, Massachusetts. Here we are a week later in Central Falls, Rhode Island. Mahmoud Khalil was abducted in New York. More than two months later, he’s still locked away in Louisiana. Families and communities are getting ripped apart by ICE all over the United States. Their loved ones are being deported or sent to detention centers in multiple states or even countries away, with zero due process.

“To win any lasting protection and security for our communities, we must recognize our local struggles for immigrant justice as part of a larger nationwide struggle for immigrant justice, just as we must recognize the struggle for immigrant justice as part of the larger global struggle of the working class against the far right capitalist ruling class.

“Ruling-class billionaires have been hoarding wealth and resources to a degree that we have never seen before. They’ve been destroying our unions, cutting our social safety nets, killing our planet, profiting off of war, genocide, and slavery, toppling governments, and sowing instability in the global south, causing global crisis after global crisis for decades. While they get richer and richer. Yet, they want us to believe that our working-class neighbors, be they immigrant or black or brown or trans or pro-Palestinian, have somehow wronged us even more. That’s bullshit.

“They want us to eat each other so we don’t eat them. In the fight for our immigrant neighbors and communities against ICE, against Trump and the billionaire agenda, we must understand that these are important battles in a larger class war - a war we can only win together as a united, conscious, and organized working class.”

“This is going to be very hard for me,” said Tina. “I am Laotian and Vietnamese, a daughter of immigrants from Laos. I grew up in Hillside, AKA Smith Hill, in Providence. I was a youth leader and board member at the Providence Youth Student Movement. I am the first in my family to receive a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree. Since graduating, I’ve led community organizations, spoken at national conferences, published a children’s book, and bought a house for my parents. I would not be the person I am today without my parents. I would not have had the opportunities I had and accomplished the things I’ve accomplished if my parents had never come to this country. And yet, from the moment they stepped foot on this land, my parents have been treated as unimportant and disposable.

“In 2010, my dad was detained by ICE, kept in a detention center for five months, deported to Laos, and was not allowed to come back to the United States for 12 Years. I was 16 years old at the time. My sister was 12. The last moment we saw my dad before he was deported is burned into my memory.

“My mom, sister, and I went to the Bristol County Detention Center, which was 45 minutes from our house, for our usual visit with my dad. We waited in the lobby until it was our turn, and once my dad’s name was called, we went into the room where you could talk with your loved ones. It’s a room lined with individual phone stalls separated by a divider. You sit in your designated stall and wait. You see them enter the room on the other side of the thick glass. My dad sat down, and we both picked up the phone and started talking with each other. But this day it was different.

“He told us that his case was being reviewed for a decision the next day, and he wasn’t sure what would happen. This may be the last time we get to see him, and if it is, he loves us, and we need to be good, study hard, help around the house, and be strong, especially for my mom. We cried hysterically, held our hands up to the glass, and he held up his, and all he could say was, ‘Bye,’ and ‘It’s going to be okay.’ Two days later, we received a call from my dad, and he told us he was in Laos, just like that. He was halfway across the world, and I need to remind you that I was 16 years old, my sister was 12, and my mom, who worked a low-paying factory job, was left to raise two children on her own on a single income.

“My dad didn’t see me or my sister walk across any stage for our high school diplomas, bachelor’s degrees, or my master’s degree. He didn’t get to see my mom beat cancer twice. He didn’t get to see us move into the new home that we now own. He was forced to miss out on all of it because he was deported to a country hundreds of thousands had fled because of terrorism.

“During the American War in Southeast Asia, the U.S. Air Force indiscriminately carpet bombed Cambodia and Laos, dropping over two million tons of explosives. This amounts to 1500 pounds of ordinance for every single person in Laos, making it the most heavily bombed nation in history. To this day, unexploded ordnance litters the countryside of Laos, and to this day, the United States has not taken responsibility.

“This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War, or what we call the American War in Southeast Asia. 2025 also marks 50 years of Southeast Asian resettlement here in Rhode Island. The deep scars of war and genocide and the legacies of U.S. militarism continue to haunt us. Yet, our spirit of resistance and resilience remains unbroken, fueling our tireless efforts to rebuild our lives, communities, and buried souls - even in countries like the U.S. that are hostile to refugees like us, yet continue to create refugees like us.

“Never forget we are here because the U.S. was there. The very same refugees that the U.S. created are being kidnapped, detained, and deported back to the same countries that the U.S. bombed.

“This isn’t unique to Southeast Asians. This is happening to many immigrant communities here in Rhode Island, and we must unite as immigrant and refugee communities to fight back. The detention and deportation of my father is a painful experience that no one deserves to know. I fought so hard for my father to return to Rhode Island, to return home, to return to us, for 12 years. I did whatever I could to bring him back to Rhode Island, and we brought him back on June 6, 2022.

“It breaks me to see that the fear, terror, and heartache are happening again in our community, and it’s even worse than before. Right here at the Wyatt in Rhode Island, ICE is detaining our friends and family. People are scared for their lives. This is not a small fear. This is a fear of being ripped away from your family without a moment’s notice and locked up in a facility where your specific needs are not met. This is a fear of completely losing control of your life because a state treats you as less than human.

“We are not talking about statistics. We are not talking about abstract policies that the government makes impossible to understand. We are talking about real people - neighbors, elders, children, and loved ones. We are talking about parents dropping their kids off at school who don’t know if they’ll make it home. We are talking about refugees who risk everything to seek safety or build a better life, only to have it ripped away from them at a traffic stop or a knock on the door. And what hurts most is knowing that this fear is all part of their plan. It’s created by policies designed to make us disappear, punish us for surviving, and erase us from the places we’ve called home.

“But we are not silent. We are not erased. We are still here. Every time we show up and rally together, we remind them that we are not alone. We will not let them kidnap our loved ones without a fight.

“The thing that my dad felt deeply in detention was that he was alone and no one cared about him or his life. Showing up reminds us and our friends and family who have been detained and deported that we are standing with them and here for them.

“I’m here to speak their names, to be loud so the folks inside Wyatt will know that they are not alone and that we are here to fight for them. I’m here to speak of Sambo, a Cambodian father who was kidnapped by ICE in March. I’m here to speak of Manatom[?], a Laotian refugee who’s been in Wyatt for months. I’m here to speak of Vanhhatdy, a beloved Lao community member who was taken at his check-in in March, and I’m here to speak of Casey, detained two weeks ago as his mother waited in the parking lot. I’m here to speak of all the immigrants and refugees who are detained at Wyatt. Free them all!

“It may not always feel like enough. I know how hard it is to keep showing up when the pain keeps coming. I know how exhausting it is to fight a system that keeps telling you your people don’t matter. I know, because I stepped away from it for years, but I am reminded that our communities need people who show up and speak out, or else we all suffer in silence and nothing changes.

“One thing my dad always said when he spent those 12 years away from us was that as long as we have each other, we’ll be okay. When we come together, speak names, share stories, and demand that our families stay together, we are not asking for permission to exist. We demand that our people live freely, safely, and protected and loved. We can hope that if we continue to be with each other, one day we’ll be more than okay. We’ll be free.”

“It’s days like these, when we’re able to mobilize quickly, that we show that we’re not going to stand by and let members of our community be taken. We’re going to resist,” said Sophia from the Alliance to Mobilize Our Resistance. We are demanding that the Wyatt Detention Facility be shut down.

“I’m going to speak today about the work our community response team has been doing to reach out to folks inside the Wyatt. Our team of volunteers has been working tirelessly and communicating every day of the week with folks who are detained by ICE here in this detention facility. We receive reports familiar to anyone who has dealt with a prison or ICE detention facility. At Wyatt, folks are denied timely access to medical care. They’re denied basic hygiene. They’re denied access to nutritional and culturally appropriate food. And when they speak out, folks are placed in solitary confinement or separated from their people.

“Folks held in this facility must wait far too long to receive their medications. Folks should not be made to wait months to access their diabetes medications. Folks reporting chest pain deserve timely access to medical care. They should not be made to languish in their rooms without access to a doctor. We are watching as the death rate of folks held in ICE detention climbs across the country. We know that detention facilities like the Wyatt are not made to house our elderly, sick, children, and infants. But time and again, ICE picks up our most vulnerable neighbors and places them in inhumane conditions that put their lives at risk. Prisons are not places of care. They’re not places of respect, and they are not places of dignity.

“There is no justification for pulling our parents, children, aunts, uncles, partners, friends, and neighbors off of the street, out of their communities, away from their families, homes, and places of work, and placed in ICE detention facilities like the Wyatt while ICE puts them through lengthy and unjust trials to intimidate, fracture, and traumatize our immigrant communities.

“The AMOR Community Fund for ICE Detainees has been created to support folks who are held at the Wyatt so that they can access resources, make outside phone calls, and buy necessities through the commissary. If you can take the time, go to our Instagram page and support our Community Fund. Help show folks in detention at the Wyatt that they are not alone, and we have not forgotten them.

“The Wyatt, and every single detention facility in this country, is a business. The more beds they fill, the more money their private investors make. The longer they delay freeing people from detention, the more money they make. The Wyatt earns $180.97 daily for each person in ICE detention. Since 2019, ICE’s contract with Wyatt has been in place because investors like Invesco sued the City of Central Falls to prevent it from ending the ICE contract. We recognize that when investors call the shots, the most important thing is their profits and the number of beds filled, not the humanity and rights of the people they detain.

“This deadly economics has ruled the Wyatt Detention Center since its founding and has led to the expansion of detention despite all of the patterns of neglect that are experienced by people here. Our goal today is to end the ICE contract and shut down the Wyatt. Our goal is connected to the movement to put an end to the rogue arm of the state that can lock up anyone it chooses with impunity and without due process. We understand that all ICE detention facilities and prisons across the country must be shut down. That is why we are here today to demand: Abolish ICE! Shut down the Wyatt! Free them all!”

“Make some noise if you want to take ICE off our streets,” said Maya. “Make some noise if you want to end the unjust imprisonment of our community members. We’re going to spend a little time marching, picketing down the sidewalk, and just around the corner to make sure that those inside know that we see them, we love them, and we are fighting to free them from this racist system.”