Local immigration advocates held a rally Tuesday in support of Fabian Schmidt, a German national and permanent U. S. resident currently being held at the Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls. The rally was organized by the Rhode Island Working Families Party, the group accusing state lawmakers of not doing enough to protect the rights of Rhode Island’s immigrant population.
Zach Mazera, political director for the Rhode Island Working Families Party, helped organize the rally. He spoke with The Public’s Radio morning host Luis Hernandez.
Interview highlights
On why the rally was held outside the Wyatt Detention Facility
Zack Mezera: These are often talked about as national issues that happened down at the border. But it really is about the community that we live in. Folks are held at the Wyatt without charges, and folks are being picked up by ICE outside of schools, outside of churches. This is not something that’s happening only in other parts of the country. It’s happening right here in Rhode Island as well.
On President Trump’s claims that immigrant detentions are intended to make the country safer
Mezera: It’s hard to be sure how anyone can feel safer in this time regardless of your background, whether you are a green card-holder, a permanent legal resident, a citizen who was naturalized into the U.S., or one who was born here. Whenever people who are up-to-date and following the law can be picked up without charge, held in a federal prison for almost two weeks without any explanation, this is the kind of situation that should make anybody feel uncomfortable, regardless of what you feel about the Trump administration and what your party registration is, regardless of what you feel about any other folks who have been picked up by ICE. It should really make a lot of people look at themselves in the mirror and go, “Oh, this could be me.”
On what Rhode Island lawmakers can do to better protect immigrants
Mezera: At the General Assembly level, there are various laws we can pass to make sure that folks have due process and that our communities are kept together. One is to make sure that folks who are picked up for minor defenses – driving with a busted taillight or something – aren’t put into this pipeline. Once you get in, it is very hard to figure out what’s happening, and certainly, that seems to have gotten worse with the Trump administration. No release of charges, no explanations to families. It’s really difficult, and the state should do everything it can to make sure that folks don’t get into this ICE pipeline in the first place.
On whether state lawmakers should consider shutting down the Wyatt Detention Facility
Mezera: I think that depends on how much of this story gets out. There have been a lot of issues with the Wyatt over the years – folks who have died, folks who have said they’ve experienced medical mistreatment. I think the important point that we’re hoping to make by raising attention to this case is that the apparatus of ICE, of Homeland Security, the tools that that organization and institution uses, that our government uses, are not only in D. C. It requires buildings, it requires staff, it requires cars, it requires all sorts of government funding to operate. A lot of those operations are happening here in Rhode Island.
