Worcester mother breaks silence after months being jailed by ICE
The morning of May 8 — the day she was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a chaotic scene on Worcester's Eureka Street and the beginning of her five-month detainment — started as a normal workday for Rosane Ferreira-De Oliveira.
She was getting ready for her job as a house cleaner when she suddenly received a phone call from her daughter, Augusta Clara Moura.
Clara Moura told her mother that she received a request from ICE to go to their Burlington facility to take care of a matter related to her recently detained partner, according to Ferreira De Oliveira.
As the call continued, the mother said she heard another voice over the phone — the voice of an ICE agent.
The agent told her that she needed to pick up Clara Moura's infant son. The voice went on to say that they would arrest Clara Moura, Ferreira-De Oliveira told MassLive.
When she arrived, the ICE agents arrested her instead of Clara Moura.
Ferreira-De Oliveira didn't know what to do. She didn't know what to say. All that she felt, she said, was despair.
"I didn't do anything" she said.
Ferreira-De Oliveira spoke with MassLive through a translator at her lawyer's office after enduring nearly five months of detainment by ICE to reflect on her arrest, detainment, and ultimate release — as well as her hopes for the future. She was officially released from her detainment at the Strafford County Corrections Center in Dover, New Hampshire, on Oct. 2.
Rosane Ferreira-De Oliveira receives flowers from members of Toland Law LLC in Boston.(Adam Bass/MassLive.com)
No idea where she would be taken
As ICE agents arrested her on May 8, pandemonium broke out on Eureka Street.
More than 30 people, including District 5 Councilor Etel Haxhiaj and former School Committee Candidate Ashley Spring, saw the ICE operation as it happened and confronted the agents. Yelling and screaming echoed in the air as chants of "don't take the mother" rang throughout the neighborhood. Clara Moura and Ferreira-De Oliveira's 17-year-old daughter watched and cried as agents took their mother away.
As she was being detained, Ferreira-De Oliveira said one of the agents grabbed her left shoulder and strained her nerve, causing pain.
She then found herself inside a gold SUV, with no idea of where she was being taken. She recalls one ICE agent saying that she would be sent to Texas. She would end up, however, at the Wyatt Detention Facility in Rhode Island.
As she sat in the SUV, Eureka Street was still in a state of bedlam. Members of the Worcester Police Department had arrived on the scene, telling the bystanders they were conducting an unlawful assembly. Some officers stood by the vehicle, telling people to move away. As the vehicle drove off, Ferreira-De Oliveira's 17-year-old daughter ran up to the passenger-side door. Police then ran after her and surrounded her, moving her to the ground and putting her in handcuffs.
Worcester police officers arrest Rosane Ferreira-De Oliveira's 17-year-old daughter on May 8.Adam Bass
She was charged with disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest but Police Chief Paul Saucier requested a judge to dismiss her case.
Following her arrest, the Department of Homeland Security called Ferreira-De Oliveira a " violent criminal illegal alien " citing one charge of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon on a pregnant victim. That charge, however, was dropped by prosecutors in July.
The arrest drew outrage among the city's citizens and some elected officials. Some even accused the Worcester Police Department of collaborating with the agents.
Following the arrest, City Manager Eric D. Batista released an executive order stating that city resources will not be used for immigration enforcement. The city council voted on a measure prohibiting the city's police department from parting with ICE.
Haxhiaj , who confronted ICE agents and police officers and Spring , who doused an officer with water from a baby bottle were also criminally charged. Both are waiting to find out whether a judge will dismiss their charges.
Trying to reconnect with her daughters
As for Ferreira-De Oliveira, she is working on rebuilding her life following her time in detainment. She told MassLive that she is working with the Department of Children and Families (DCF) to get back her 13-year-old daughter, who was placed in their care.
She is also in contact with her 17-year-old daughter, who is currently missing. A family lawyer previously said that the daughter was in Brazil but Ferreira-De Oliveira told MassLive that she is still in the United States. She said she doesn't know her exact whereabouts but knows that she is safe and wants her to come home soon.
Both the 17-year-old and the 13-year-old ran away from DCF care this summer after they were placed in DCF care but the 13-year-old was found in Massachusetts in August.
Ferreira-De Oliveira was unable to see her daughter being arrested. In fact, the mother did not see any footage of her arrest until the day of her release. As she saw the video, she said that she cried and was heartbroken over what happened to her daughter.
"She's just a child," Ferreira-De Oliveira said in Portuguese.
Ferreira-De Oliveira added that Clara Moura, who left the United States to Brazil to be with her partner, would not be coming back to the country, as she is scared over what happened.
She expressed sadness over her daughter's choice, with her saying that she wanted Clara Moura, her 17 and 13-year-old daughter and her 24-year-old daughter, who also lives in Brazil, to all live together.
'Everyone was desperate' — time during her detainment
The first stop for Ferreira-De Oliveira was the hospital.
Due to her arm and shoulder pain, the hospital prescribed medicine and wanted her to continue with physical therapy exercises. However, she was not given the medication or exercise instruction sheet until after she left ICE's facility on Oct. 2 — five months after the hospital visit.
A spokesperson for ICE did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
For 30 days, Ferreira-De Oliveira was detained at the Wyatt Detention Facility in Rhode Island. She said that those held at the facility only received one to two hours of recreation time a day, mostly during the night. As such, she didn't go out that often. She described the guards at the facility as "very serious" and stated that the inmates were left to their own devices.
On June 9, she was told that she was being transferred to another place but was not told.
Ferreira-De Oliveira said that she once again became desperate and began to cry. She thought that she would be taken to Texas, just as the ICE agent told her in the gold SUV.
Instead, she was taken to another corrections facility in New Hampshire, where she would spend the majority of her detention.
From June through October, Ferreira-De Oliveira met with other women who were in the same situation as her.
"Everyone was desperate," she said. "There was a lot of crying."
But in that desperation, Ferreira-De Oliveira took it upon herself to become a person these women could look up to. She became a motherly figure to them, offering to listen and soothe them in times of need.
One woman in her 60s had been detained for over a year, Ferreira De Oliveira recalled. This woman would often break down into tears and would need comfort. Ferreira-De Oliveira said she was the one who was there to help this woman.
Ferreira-De Oliveira said her newfound strength came from the hope she had that she would be reunited with her daughters. During phone calls with them, she would often hear them cry and said that they just wanted their mother, she said.
During her spare time, Ferreira-De Oliveira would often read the bible. As a Christian, faith is incredibly important to her and was one of her sources of strength.
There were also moments of joy in detention as many birthdays were celebrated. For one birthday, Ferreira-De Oliveira and the other inmates crushed up cookies, added milk and used a microwave to make a cake. She also worked at the facility, helping clean out the microwave and the recreation areas.
Through it all, Ferreira-De Oliveira held out hope that her asylum case would be heard and did not even consider what would happen to her if she were deported.
That hope paid off on Sep. 30 when the judge ruled in favor of her case. Two days later, she would be heading back home to Worcester.
From disbelief to joy
It was the morning of Oct. 2 at the Strafford County Corrections Center in Dover, New Hampshire, and Ferreira-De Oliveira was having her breakfast and coffee.
Even though she was granted asylum by an immigration judge two days prior, she was still in detention at the time. That all changed when she heard her name being called on the intercom.
Ferreira-De Oliveira said she met with someone from the corrections center, who informed her that she was going to be released.
She said she thought she misheard them. She was in disbelief. That disbelief soon turned into joy when the official told her a second time that she was free to leave.
Ferreira-De Oliveira said she started jumping up and down with glee as she embraced her fellow inmates. Cheers and tears were exchanged as she was transported to another ICE facility in Burlington.
Even though she was free to leave, Ferreira-De Oliveira said she was still shackled on her arms and legs. Once the shackles were removed at the facility, she broke into tears.
"It was the best moment of my life," she said through translator Gabriella De Oliveira, a paralegal for Toland Law LLC who is not related to Ferreira-De Oliveira.
Reunited with her husband, Ferreira-De Oliveira spent her first night out of detention eating her favorite food: steak.
She said she couldn't get used to the food at both the Wyatt Detention Facility in Rhode Island and the Dover facility and that she had to drink water from the sink. All Ferreira-De Oliveira wanted was a nice, juicy, grilled steak.
On Oct. 6, Ferreira-De Oliveira was greeted with cheers from members of Toland Law LLC., the law firm that had successfully argued her asylum case. Though she looked tired, her face was filled with happiness as she was given orange and yellow flowers.
"I feel so happy," she said in Portuguese.
Love and support
Ferreira-De Oliveira said that she fled Brazil for safety reasons but did not further specify why. She chose Worcester as her home, describing it as a safe place to live.
Even though she was arrested by ICE and detained, she feels reassured to know the community has her back. She said she saw the love and attention that the people had for her.
That support, plus getting letters while in detainment, felt as though the community was hugging the Worcester mother and that there was "no amount of money" that could equal the compassion she has been shown, she said.
While she is free, she is still scared of what could happen not only to her but to other families whose lives ICE arrests have impacted.
But for now, all that matters to Ferreira-De Oliveira is getting her life back on track, longing for the day when she's allowed to see her daughters and hug them.
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