EDITOR’S NOTE: On Thursday, April 24, agents from the Boston office of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested a man on the West Side of Providence. During the arrest, ICE agents tasered the man, and subsequently took him to Rhode Island Hospital for treatment.

 

Word of the incident traveled quickly, and, within hours, a crowd of more than 100 people assembled outside the hospital to support the man and object to ICE’s actions. You can read journalist Steve Ahlquist’s report on the protest here. And for ICE’s comments on the incident, see Katie Mulvaney’s April 26 Providence Journal report, “ICE provides details on arrest that sparked protest at Rhode Island Hospital. What we know.”

 

On the day after the arrest and hospital protest, Providence City Council Member Justin Roias issued the following statement, which we are re-publishing with his permission. [Photo by Steve Ahlquist.]

 

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Yesterday, ICE agents tased and hospitalized a member of our community on Parade St. After causing a medical emergency, they took him into custody while he was still recovering. His attorney confirmed that ICE agents denied him access to legal counsel – a blatant violation of due process and the basic human rights guaranteed to every person on U.S. soil, regardless of immigration status.

Today, we learned more. He is married to a U.S. citizen. His wife is pregnant. He had a green card interview scheduled for that very day – an interview he never reached because ICE chose to meet lawful compliance with brute force.

This man was not evading the law. He tried to comply. He asked ICE agents for assurances he would not be harmed. They responded by slamming him against a car and tasing him unconscious.

This is not public safety. This is violence disguised as law.

Let me be clear: ICE is a rogue federal agency operating with impunity – destabilizing families, terrorizing neighborhoods, and eroding the very principles of justice it claims to defend. What happened yesterday on the streets of our city is not an accident – it is the deliberate outcome of a system sliding deeper into authoritarianism. Providence will not stand for this, and yesterday, we showed it.

Hundreds of residents mobilized quickly to defend a neighbor’s rights. I could not be prouder of how our city responded – with urgency, with clarity, and with a deep understanding that an injury to one is an injury to all.

And I will not be silent either.

 

I want to be crystal clear: my role as a city councilor may be small in the machinery of government, but the size of a platform does not determine the weight of a conscience. In times like these, silence-even from small places – amounts to complicity. I will continue to speak out, because the defense of rights and dignity must come from every level of government – or it will not come at all.

I issue this statement tonight as the cracks in our democracy grow wider. Today, we learned that a two-year-old U.S. citizen was deported to Honduras without meaningful legal process, while her father’s pleas were ignored. We also learned that two judges – one in Wisconsin and another in New Mexico – were arrested by federal authorities, accused of interfering with Trump administration immigration enforcement efforts.

These are not isolated scandals. They are the deliberate architecture of a system where compassion is criminalized, where citizenship offers no protection, and where due process is treated as expendable.

We will stand with our immigrant brothers and sisters. We will resist every attempt to strip away dignity. And we will fight for a city-and a country. where rights are real, dignity is untouchable, and humanity is never up for debate.

We are paying attention. We are standing together. And we will not look away.

 

Justin Roias is the City Councilor for Ward 4, which consists of the Charles and Wanskuck neighborhoods. He is a school social worker and licensed mental health counselor. He lives in the North End with his wife and daughter.