On March 27, a Rhode Island resident from Laos called Vanhhatdy — also known as Lay — was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is currently being held in the Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, according to the Party for Socialism and Liberation Rhode Island.
His family declined to share his last name and more information about why he was detained.
Vanhhatdy’s detainment follows several others in Rhode Island. In late January, an individual was detained in Newport and in early March, another was apprehended in Central Falls.
In response to the latest detainment, community members held a protest outside the detention facility. Representatives from the Providence Youth Student Movement and the Deportation Defense Coalition — which consists of the Olneyville Neighborhood Association, PSL and the Alliance to Mobilize Our Resistance — supported the protest.
“I will continue to fight until all Southeast Asians are free, until all immigrant communities are free from ICE terror,” Suonriaksmay Keo, the Youth Engagement Director of the Providence Youth Student Movement said during the protest.
Vanhhatdy’s wife, daughter and son also spoke at the event in support of freeing Vanhhatdy.
“I want ICE to know that I am angry and I am hurt,” Vanhhatdy’s wife said. “They destroyed my family.”
Some members of the Southeast Asian community in Rhode Island have rallied against recent local ICE activity. A late March demonstration protested the detainment of two Southeast Asian men from Rhode Island who are currently being held at the Krome Detention Center in Florida, according to PrYSM Co-Executive Director Vanessa Flores-Maldonado.
The men “thought it would be safe to travel since their partners are citizens and they are green card holders,” Flores-Maldonado wrote in an email to The Herald.
PrYSM’s Deportation Defense Director Theary Voeul and PrYSM co-founder Sarath Suong ’24.5 told R.I. PBS that many individuals who are currently being threatened with deportation orders are immigrants who committed crimes when they were children or adolescents.
“Now 20, 30 years later, immigration is punishing them all over again. It’s heartbreaking,” Voeul said in an interview with the local station.
Trump’s presidency has increased deportation efforts, Suong said.
“To see ICE presence in Providence is beyond an insult to our community as we’ve been working to undo detention and deportations in our city for decades now,” Flores-Maldonado wrote.
