The morning of May 8, Rosanne Ferreira-De Oliveira, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Eureka Street in Worcester. It was just supposed to be a normal workday for her as a house cleaner. MassLive reporter, Adam Bass, spoke with Ferreira-De Oliveira when she was released after being held in a detention center for 5 months.
Adam Bass, Masslive: So, what happened the morning of May 8th was that Ferreira- De Oliveira, the mother of four daughters, was getting ready for her work as a house cleaner when she suddenly received a call on her phone. It turned out to be her second oldest daughter, Augusta Clara Moura, telling her mother that she had to go to Burlington at an ICE facility to take care of a matter regarding her partner, who had been detained the day before. Over the phone, the mother heard another voice who she said was an ICE agent, telling her that she needed to pick up her grandson, Clara Moura’s son, and threatened to detain the daughter if she did not do so.
Rosanne Ferreira-De Oliveira drove to Eureka Street and suddenly she herself was arrested. She told me that she felt despair. She couldn't do anything. She couldn't say anything. People started coming out and protesting the arrest, calling for ICE to show a warrant and to not take her at this point. One of the agents grabbed her shoulder and hurt her nerve, causing the mother to cry out in pain as she was put into a gold SUV to be taken to the detention center in Central Falls, Rhode Island.
Though she didn't know where she was going to be taken, she thought that she was going to be taken to Texas based on what an ICE agent told her. Meanwhile, outside, everyone is screaming and yelling and demanding that she not be taken. All the while, Clara Moura, her second oldest and her third oldest, a 17-year-old, are watching their mother be taken away and are asking what's going on.
Nirvani Williams, NEPM: That sounds like such a chaotic scene. And just to go back to Oliveira, did she receive medical attention at some point?
She was taken to a hospital before being taken to Central Falls. She did receive medicine for her shoulder, and she also received a sheet of exercises for physical therapy. However, when she got to the facility, she claimed that ICE never gave her the medication and the exercise sheet to help her arm heal.
Under the Constitution, law enforcement is required to provide medical attention to people they've injured in their custody. Did ICE officers or a spokesperson from the Department of Homeland Security provide any information as to why the people who were injured, in this case, Oliveira while detained, didn't receive the sheet and the medicine that she was supposed to receive.
That's a good question. I did ask an ICE spokesperson about the claim Oliveira made and I haven't received a response from ICE since then. I did receive a prior response from the Department of Homeland Security when her lawyer, Paul Toland, previously told me back in May that ICE injured her shoulder. They denied the claim saying that ICE has been providing medical care for Ferreira-De Oliveira.
And have lawyers who represented these detainees spoken to you about what more can be done to help these folks?
Not so much on what more can be done. They've just talked about the fact that their clients aren't receiving treatment, and that seems to be the broader theme. There's more anger rather than a call for a solution. The only steps that they should be taking, according to lawyers, is giving their clients medication.
And you were saying earlier, there were protesters who were at the scene feeling anger and outrage. That also seems to be a larger trend, at least from what I've seen in my reporting too.
There has been anger towards ICE in the community, as well as anger towards local police departments. The Worcester Police Department was called to the scene by ICE and by bystanders, according to live calls released by the city on May 16th. The [police] were called, they told the bystanders and the protesters they were creating an unlawful assembly. Some of them even surrounded the SUV, telling people to move away. They also arrested the 17-year-old daughter of Ferrer-De Oliveira, after she ran towards the gold SUV that her mother was in, as was driving away. Several charges were placed on her, but Police Chief Paul Saucier asked the judge to drop the charges. However, we don't know if those charges were dropped because she's a juvenile. And because of this, there has been anger towards the police department accusing them of collaborating with ICE even though they are not allowed to make arrests based on immigration status.
Regardless, people feel as if Worcester Police Department officers did not stop ICE and that they should have stopped ICE while the arrest was going on.
