the volume of calls from immigrant workers complaining of exploitation has increased, as the sales of businesses that cater to immigrants have gone down.
“ Businesses have reduced their labor force, and employers who know the situation will take advantage of their workers and threaten them with ICE— these threats are not legal, but they put fear in their workers,” he says.
Farouk Rajab, president / CEO of the Rhode Island Hospitality Association, has been fielding calls from members worried about workers being deported.
“ It has a huge impact on our industry because we are an industry of immigrants,” he says.“ It’ s one of the easier industries for immigrants to integrate in our country, and we’ ve always welcomed them.”
Chef Cecelia Dama Lizotte considered temporarily closing her acclaimed West African restaurant Suya Joint to fight her brother’ s detention. Seven years ago, Paul Dama fled a terrorist insurgency in Nigeria to manage Lizotte’ s restaurants in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and Providence. Dama was authorized to work and his asylum petition was pending when ICE arrested him on the way to church last June. He was held until late September 2025, when a judge granted him asylum. Lizotte calls it“ one of the most painful experiences of my life.“ Our staff in Boston and Providence showed up every day not knowing what the outcome would be. There were tears behind the scenes, long nights and financial pressures that most people never see. When a key team member, who is also your family, is in legal limbo, it affects everything,” she says.“ I am grateful to say that Paul has now been granted asylum. But I want to be honest, the legal process was costly. The emotional toll was heavy.”
Nonetheless, the ending of Dama’ s immigration journey is happier than most, because, for one thing— it had an ending.
Maria Kyiv( a pseudonym) sits in limbo, after the program that temporarily admitted Ukrainians escaping the Russian invasion stopped processing the work permit and visa extension requests for the 240,000 Ukrainians already here. Kyiv, her mother and nine-year-old son have lived in Rhode Island, near her sister’ s family, under temporary visas since 2022. Recently, she rejected her sister’ s suggestion to sponsor Kyiv’ s application for permanent legal status through the family reunification program.
“ They are now reviewing applications filed in 2007. Can you imagine?” she says.“ The last four years I’ ve built my new life here. And then one day you have to cross them off and go somewhere else to start again from zero. I wouldn’ t go back to Ukraine because it is not a safe place.”
Immigration lawyers say that the Executive Office for Immigration Review has eliminated judicial discretion and defendants’ legal strategies. Immigrant filings could now be rejected for any paperwork error, and clerks are prohibited from explaining why or how it could be corrected, Cade says. Critics charge that 100 judges out of a staff of 750, whose average caseload is 12,000, were fired for below par deportation decisions.
Cade left in May 2025 out of“ a concern that due process was becoming impacted.” In the past, a new administration might have instituted a policy change she may“ have personally disagreed with, but I never felt like I was being asked to violate the law. I remember specifically my supervisor said,‘ I’ m not going to tell you how to decide your cases, but you know what they want you to do.’”
An EOIR spokesperson said the office continually evaluates immigration judges.“ All judges have a legal, ethical and professional obligation to be impartial and neutral in adjudicating cases. If a judge violates that obligation by demonstrating a systematic bias in favor of or against either party, EOIR is obligated to take action to preserve the integrity of its system.”
Deborah Gonzalez, director of Roger Williams University’ s Immigration Law Clinic, says that“ immigrants are now viewed as criminals and treated worse. A rapist gets a lawyer for free, and a bail hearing. A rapist isn’ t going to be held in detention until he is proven guilty. None of that happens for immigrants.”
Rhode Island’ s federal court has been clogged with habeas corpus petitions, which forces a judicial review of those detained and held by ICE. But Southeast Asian advocacy groups say they no longer have much success getting deportation orders removed or guiding their clients to citizenship.
“ The challenge has been redefining what wins look like and making sure to celebrate those because of this overall sense of hopelessness,” says Vanessa Flores-Maldonado, who recently stepped down as executive director of PrYSM, a Southeast Asian social justice and advocacy organization.
Theary Voeul, who has been working with refugee families for twenty-five years, says many who came over as babies never realized that they were not full citizens.
“ The majority of our cases are for decades-old crimes. These
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