WORCESTER — The scene Thursday when federal immigration agents arrested a mother in front of her daughters was chaotic.
The family tried to stop the arrest on Eureka Street, backed by a crowd that demanded authorities prove they had legal authority to take the woman into custody. Then Worcester police arrived.
Federal immigration agents detained one woman and took her away in an SUV while city police officers arrested her daughter, 16, and another woman who tried to intervene.
It was President Trump’s deportation push in action, and it triggered an outpouring of anger among some in Worcester. The arrests divided a family and prompted a standoff: federal and local police officers on one side and a crowd that tried to shield the woman from being taken into custody on the other.
“We’re a community that is not going to allow the terror that has been unleashed by the Trump administration to happen in silence or in the cover of darkness,” state Senator Robyn Kennedy, a Worcester Democrat, said Saturday in an interview.
On Sunday afternoon, hundreds of people flooded the Worcester Common, a central square behind its City Hall, to condemn US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents’ actions.
Dozens of homemade signs waved in the air, bearing messages such as “Hands Off Our Neighbors,” “Kidnapping Mothers Is A Crime,” and “Celebrate Mothers, Don’t Deport Them.” One woman held up a large painting, depicting a man in sunglasses with a vest labeled “ICE” pulling a crying baby from the arms of a distressed woman.
For more than an hour and a half, the protesters cheered on a lineup of speakers who slammed the Trump administration’s immigration policies and demanded that local elected officials and community members rise up and come together to protect immigrants from being forcibly removed.
Rebecca Winter, a spokesperson for the grass-roots activist group Mass 50501, said the nonprofit organized the event to bring people together in defense of democracy and the Constitution, particularly in light of the events on Eureka Street.
“These arrests are incredibly violent, they appear to be unlawful, [and] plenty of people who have been taken by ICE appear to be here legally and are not criminals in any way,” Winter said.
Barbara Prata, a 39-year-old Shrewsbury mother of two young girls, said it was important to her to attend the rally, even on Mother’s Day.
She said her husband emigrated to the US from Brazil 15 years ago and was formerly undocumented.
“I can’t imagine what that 16-year-old girl went through watching her mother get stolen,” Prata said. “I’m not gonna just sit home when families are literally being torn apart a mile away from my house.”
The actions of Worcester police officers have become a major point of debate. Some local elected officials have accused police of aiding federal immigration agents to the detriment of residents and decried the arrest of the teenager.
Antuan Castro Del Rio, a 37-year-old artist and activist who lives in Chelsea, said at the rally he felt rage and a sense of powerlessness watching the videos from Eureka Street. But he also felt confirmation, arguing the incident exposed how police are often complicit in federal immigration enforcement, even if police departments commit to not cooperating with ICE.
“What they say is they’re really not collaborating and arresting people, but they do collaborate by protecting the process,” Castro Del Rio said. “They are protecting the abductions and kidnappings of community members.”
He said that in videos shared online that were recorded by bystanders the Worcester police jumped on the woman’s daughter and “slammed her face first into the ground, put a knee on her neck, and then two more police officers came in and handcuffed her as if she was a criminal.”
The Globe has been unable to obtain a copy of the videos depicting this incident.
The US Department of Homeland Security and the union for the city’s patrol officers have fired back and directed criticism at Worcester City Councilor Etel Haxhiaj, who had stood between the woman and federal immigration agents.
In separate statements, the federal agency and the police union accused Haxhiaj of obstructing law enforcement officials. The unions representing the city’s patrol officers and police supervisors also called on the city to open an ethics investigation into Haxhiaj’s conduct. Reached Saturday, Haxhiaj declined to comment.
Federal officials have offered few details about ICE’s actions on Eureka Street. In a statement issued Friday, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin identified the woman arrested by federal agents as Rosane Ferreira de Oliveira.
McLaughlin described de Oliveira as “violent” and a “criminal” and asserted that she entered the country illegally in August 2022. She also said de Oliveira had been charged with “assault and battery with a dangerous weapon” and “assault and battery on a pregnant victim” but didn’t specify when and where or the name of the law enforcement agency handling the matter.
An ICE spokesperson didn’t respond Saturday to questions about the criminal charges, and Globe searches of the Massachusetts court system’s public database didn’t yield any cases under de Oliveira‘s name.
In an interview that aired Friday on Telemundo New England, a lawyer for de Oliveira said the federal government had granted her temporary protections from deportation. He also said de Oliveira has applied for asylum and does not have a criminal record. The attorney didn’t respond Saturday to requests for comment from the Globe.
Telemundo also interviewed one of de Oliveira‘s daughters, Augusta Clara, 21, who is seen holding a baby in her arms in some videos from the scene.
Clara identified her 16-year-old sister as the arrested teenager.
In a news release, the Police Department said it received different reports about the scene unfolding on Eureka Street before officers arrived Thursday morning. One report indicated a crowd of about 25 people had surrounded a federal agent. Another report said ICE agents there were refusing to display a warrant to the crowd.
Once federal agents placed de Oliveira in a vehicle and attempted to drive away, Worcester police said, the teenage girl stood in front of the SUV as she held a baby.
Police said officers told her to move out of the way, which she did and gave the baby to someone else. As the vehicle started to move, the teenager ran after it and kicked the passenger side, the police statement said. Police said officers charged her with reckless endangerment of a child, disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest.
Police Chief Paul Saucier said in a statement Sunday Worcester officers don’t enforce federal immigration law or ask anyone their immigration status, and do not coordinate with federal immigration authorities. He also accused Haxhiaj of interfering with city officers.
“It is disappointing and unacceptable that a Worcester city councilor put her hands on our officers during the incident on Eureka St. Regardless of the charged political climate, physical violence is never an acceptable response to policy disagreements,” he said.
Saucier declined to provide further details about this accusation; Haxhiaj did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
In a video published by MassLive, Haxhiaj confronted police about the arrest.
“You arrested her and threw her on the ground,” she said.
Clara told Telemundo that the girl and her 13-year-old sister are now in the custody of child welfare officials.
Also arrested was Ashley Spring, 38, a Worcester School Committee candidate, police said. In a report filed in court, Worcester police accused Spring of pushing and shoving officers and spraying an “unknown liquid” at another officer as they tried to arrest the teenager. Spring didn’t respond Saturday to messages seeking comment.
She was arraigned Friday in Worcester District Court, where she pleaded not guilty to several charges, including assault and battery on a police officer. Her next court date is set for June 23.
In a statement issued Thursday, Worcester city manager Eric D. Batista described the incident on Eureka Street as “disturbing.”
“Unfortunately, two individuals were arrested after several attempts by WPD officers to de-escalate the chaotic situation, which included the endangerment of an infant,” he said.
Worcester “will never target individuals based on their immigration status,” and the city and its police officers do not assist with “ICE civil detainments,” but also may not interfere with it, the statement said.
Worcester Mayor Joseph Petty and Worcester City Councilor Khrystian King have said they asked Batista to prepare a report about the incident.
“We had a teenager that was literally fighting for her life, for her family’s life, who ended up arrested, handcuffed, and charged,” King said Saturday in a phone interview. “We have to find better ways to deal with a young girl who’s in an extreme state of distress seeing her mother taken away.”
Fred Taylor, president of the Worcester branch of the NAACP, likened the arrest of de Oliveira to a kidnapping and called on Worcester police to not assist ICE.
“What happened Thursday shouldn’t and can’t happen,” he said.
Correction: In a previous version of the story, the name of the nonprofit that organized the protest in Worcester was misspelled. The organization is Mass 50501. The Globe regrets the error.
Correction: Because of incorrect information provided to the Globe, the correct and full spelling of Rosane Ferreira de Oliveira was incorrect in previous versions of this story. The Globe regrets the error.
Laura Crimaldi can be reached at laura.crimaldi@globe.com. Follow her @lauracrimaldi. Niki Griswold can be reached at niki.griswold@globe.com. Follow her @nikigriswold.