Worcester City Hall closed due to ‘safety concerns' after protest
Worcester City Hall is closing to the public this afternoon and holding its meetings virtually over safety concerns.
Another protest is planned on Tuesday night as the city is facing national scrutiny for an ICE operation that unfolded last week.
Video Boston 25 obtained shows a Brazilian woman named Ferreira de Oliveira being detained on Eureka Street last Thursday.
Her 16-year-old daughter and a woman running for the school committee were also arrested for trying to stop the agents.
ICE says de Oliveira entered the country illegally and was arrested in February for allegedly assaulting a pregnant woman.
ICE and the Worcester Police union are also calling out City Councilor Etel Haxhaij. They say she tried to obstruct the operation, and the union is calling for an investigation into her actions..
When asked how the District Attorney's office is moving forward after the incident, and whether he believes officers responded appropriately, Worcester County District Attorney Joseph Early said he could not speak for the police department.
'I can't speak for the department, I know you have a great chief and he always looks at things after the fact, what do we do well, what could we do better,' Early said. 'You know that's just part of life, and they've been a great partner with us.'
Boston 25 has reached out to the police union and the councilor's office for additional comment and are waiting to hear back.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
Download the FREE Boston 25 News app for breaking news alerts.
Follow Boston 25 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch Boston 25 News NOW
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Washington Post
13 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Sending the National Guard is bad. Arresting 3,000 a day is worse.
ICE agents making arrests in the parking lot of a Home Depot helped set off mass protests in Los Angeles. But that wasn't an isolated incident. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is increasingly taking actions at courthouses, restaurants and other spaces it previously stayed away from. President Donald Trump and his top aides have long favored harsh immigration policies. But what's shifted in recent weeks is that the administration has set a specific goal of ICE arresting at least 3,000 people per a quota may help Trump accomplish his goals, but it is leading to overly aggressive tactics that are deeply unsettling Americans across the country. It was perhaps inevitable that a president who promised to deport more people than his predecessors would implement an arrest quota. In the first months of Trump's tenure, the number of deportations and ICE arrests wasn't that much higher than when President Joe Biden was in office. That reportedly frustrated Trump administration officials, particularly Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. So last month, Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem privately gave ICE leaders — and then publicly confirmed — the goal of making 3,000 arrests per day. The administration also replaced ICE's leadership with people it felt would be more aggressive. That's a huge increase: The agency was making between 700 and 900 arrests per day at the end of Biden's term and the start of Trump's. And it appears this new policy is being carried out. ICE officials say they arrested 2,267 people on June 3 and 2,368 on June 4. It's possible these numbers are being inflated by the agency to please Trump and Miller. But there are articles in news outlets across the country about unprecedented ICE enforcement actions in their communities, so I believe the agency is going beyond its usual moves. But this policy is misguided. Quotas are problematic in many contexts. I support increased gender and racial diversity but am wary of organizations trying to hire a set number of women and people of color. In law enforcement, they are more troublesome. Police officers operating under quota systems feel pushed to make arrests for minor offenses. They sometimes target not the most dangerous people but those who are easiest to apprehend. That's what's happening now. Undocumented immigrants showing up to court hearings, working at clothing stores or looking to get Home Depot customers to hire them for day labor are probably not leading human trafficking organizations on the side. I am deeply concerned that ICE will soon start making arrests at schools and hospitals, since those are other places where you can arrest lots of people at once — few of whom will be armed or dangerous. I am opposed to these arrests in part because I don't support Trump's overarching goals of deporting 1 million immigrants a year and creating a climate in which other undocumented immigrants return to their native countries on their own. But you could argue that while Trump did not specifically campaign on 3,000 arrests per day, he promised to crack down on undocumented immigrants, and Americans elected him, so the public wants this. It's hard to determine why people voted for a candidate and what kind of mandate that gives them. But even if Trump campaigned explicitly on arresting 3,000 people a day, we should be wary of that policy — and not just because quotas generally aren't smart. This particular quota is excessive. If ICE arrested 3,000 a people a day, that would add up to about 1.1 million arrests after a year. There are about 11.7 million undocumented people in the United States. So if no individual was arrested more than once, about 9 percent of undocumented immigrants would be arrested in a given year under this policy. Arresting 9 percent of any group would almost certainly result in the other 91 percent being constantly worried about being arrested or jailed. And because about three quarters of undocumented immigrants are from Central or South America, some U.S. citizens and authorized residents who are Brown almost certainly will be unjustly arrested or questioned by ICE. This arrest quota echoes stop-and-frisk policies many police departments used to employ. At the height of that approach, there were about 350,000 stops of the 1.9 million Black New Yorkers. Basically every Black New Yorker had to be on guard for being stopped and frisked, and a judge invalidated the program on the grounds that it was racially discriminatory. Miller and Trump may want all 11.7 million undocumented immigrants to live in terror. But the rest of us shouldn't. The overwhelming majority of those people came to the United States seeking a better life. If we want to deter future immigrants, cracking down on employers who hire undocumented people and making it harder to enter the country in the first place are obvious solutions. Making life excessively difficult for people already here will probably discourage future migrants, but the U.S. government should not be in the business of rushing into restaurants and courthouses with guns to arrest people for the purpose of scaring others into leaving the country. Many Democratic politicians and political commentators have criticized Trump for deploying the National Guard over the objections of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, to stop the protests of ICE's actions in Los Angeles. But Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Lyndon B. Johnson rightly invoked the National Guard, without support from governors, to integrate schools and defend civil rights marches respectively. The problem isn't that Trump is using the National Guard; it's that he's using the National Guard to defend a policy that will target people of color indiscriminately and inhumanely. The quota must go.
Washington Post
13 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Democrats ignored border politics. Now the consequences are here.
Democrats have gotten the border issue so wrong, for so long, that it amounts to political malpractice. The latest chapter — in which violent protesters could be helping President Donald Trump create a military confrontation he's almost begging for as a distraction from his other problems — may prove the most dangerous yet. When I see activists carrying Mexican flags as they challenge ICE raids in Los Angeles this week, I think of two possibilities: These 'protesters' are deliberately working to create visuals that will help Trump, or they are well-meaning but unwise dissenters who are inadvertently accomplishing the same goal. Democrats' mistake, over more than a decade, has been to behave as though border enforcement doesn't matter. Pressured by immigrant rights activists, party leaders too often acted as if maintaining a well-controlled border was somehow morally wrong. Again and again, the short-term political interests of Democratic leaders in responding to a strong faction within the party won out over having a policy that could appeal to the country as a whole. When red-state voters and elected officials complained that their states were being overwhelmed by uncontrolled immigration over the past decade, Democrats found those protests easy to ignore. They were happening somewhere else. But when red states' governors pushed migrants toward blue-state cities over the past several years, protests from mayors and governors finally began to register. But still not enough to create coherent Democratic policies, alas. It's open season on former president Joe Biden these days, and he doesn't deserve all the retrospective criticism he's getting. But on immigration, he was anything but a profile in courage. Security advisers including Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas wanted tougher border policies starting in 2021. But political advisers such as chief of staff Ron Klain, who sought amity with immigration rights progressives in Congress and the party's base, resisted strong measures. Though Biden was elected as a centrist, he leaned left — and waited until the last months of his presidency to take the strong enforcement measures recommended earlier. Throughout the 2024 campaign, Trump played shamelessly on public anxieties about the border. Some of his arguments, like claims that hungry migrants were eating pets, were grotesque. They were simply provocations. But Biden and Kamala Harris didn't have good answers, other than indignation. They had straddled the issue through Biden's term, talking about border security but failing to enact it, and the public knew it. Democrats finally came up with a bipartisan border bill in 2024 that would have given the president more authority to expel migrants and deny asylum claims, and more money to secure the border. Republicans, led by Trump, were shameless opportunists in opposing the bill. They didn't want Biden to have a win. In the end, Democrats didn't have the votes — or, frankly, the credibility on the issue. Biden took executive action in June 2024, limiting entry into the United States. But it was too late. He could have taken that action in 2021. Since Trump took office in January, he has been building toward this week's confrontation in the streets. ICE raids have steadily increased in cities with large migrant populations, as have nationwide quotas for arrests and deportations. Trump declared a national emergency on Inauguration Day that gave him authority to send troops to the border to 'assist' in controlling immigration. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem seized every photo opportunity to convey a militarized approach to the coming clash. Over these months, the immigration issue has been a car crash skidding toward us in slow motion. Since his first term, Trump has clearly wanted a military confrontation with the left over immigration or racial issues. Gen. Mark A. Milley, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, helped talk Trump out of invoking the Insurrection Act in 2020 to contain the unrest that followed the death of George Floyd. But this time, Trump faces no opposition. He is surrounded by yes-men and -women. The saddest part is that Democrats still have no clear policy. Some blue-state mayors and governors have pledged to provide 'sanctuary' for migrants, but they don't have good arguments to rebut Trump's claim they're interfering with the enforcement of federal law. In some cases, sanctuary has meant refusing to hand over undocumented migrants convicted of violent crimes, former DHS officials tell me. That's wrong. The courts have limited Trump's most arbitrary policies and his defiance of due process, but not his authority to enforce immigration laws. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) this week chose sensible ground to fight, by filing a lawsuit challenging Trump's authority to override gubernatorial power by federalizing National Guard troops when there isn't a 'rebellion' or 'invasion.' There is no evidence of such extreme danger — or that local law enforcement in Los Angeles can't handle the problems. But Newsom's smart pushback doesn't get Democrats out of addressing an issue they've been ducking for more than a decade: Do they have the courage to enforce the border themselves? Over the long run, taking border issues seriously means more immigration courts, and more border-control people and facilities — and a fair, legal way of deciding who stays and who goes. But right now, it means Democratic mayors and governors using state and local police to contain protests, so that troops aren't necessary — and preventing extremists among the activists from fomenting the cataclysm in the streets that some of them seem to want as much as Trump. Yes, of course, we need new bipartisan legislation to resolve the gut issue of how to protect the 'dreamers' and other longtime residents who show every day that they want only to be good citizens. But on the way to that day of sweet reason, Democrats need to oppose violence, by anyone — and to help enforce immigration policies that begin with a recognition that it isn't immoral to have a border.
New York Post
21 minutes ago
- New York Post
House panel demands records of 217 NGOs that nabbed billions of taxpayer dollars to ‘fuel' border crisis
WASHINGTON — A House Republican panel is demanding records from more than 200 non-governmental organizations that nabbed billions of dollars in taxpayers' money to settle migrants in the US under ex-President Joe Biden. One of the targeted groups is among those embroiled in the anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) and Subcommittee Chairman Josh Breechen (R-Okla.) fired off letters to the 217 organizations Tuesday, accusing each of having 'helped fuel the worst border crisis in our nation's history.' Advertisement 5 House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Mark Green (R-Tenn.) fired off letters to 217 non-governmental organizations Tuesday accusing them of having 'helped fuel the worst border crisis in our nation's history.' Bloomberg via Getty Images The powerful Republican chairman and Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee leader said the groups created a 'pull factor' in providing taxpayer-funded transportation, translation, housing and other services to migrants, most of whom were released into the country after crossing the border illegally. 'The Committee remains deeply concerned that NGOs that receive U.S. taxpayer dollars benefitted from the border crisis created by the Biden Administration, and stand ready to do so under future Democrat administrations,' Green and Breechen wrote, citing a 'near-total lack of accountability' for how the money was spent. Advertisement They also noted that they are investigating how much the funding incentivized 'human trafficking and smuggling' operations as well as whether the 'NGOs are now actively advising illegal aliens on how to avoid and impede law enforcement officials.' 5 The ICE crackdown in Los Angeles rounded up convicted sexual abusers, drug dealers and gang members to put into removal proceedings, federal officials said. REUTERS One of the groups, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), took nearly $1 million in DHS grants to 'offer both citizenship instruction and naturalization application services to lawful permanent residents' starting in 2021. Its last tranche of funding was yanked by the Trump administration in March. CHIRLA organized a rally Thursday to denounce the ICE arrests of illegal immigrants in Los Angeles before protests devolved into full-blown riots that destroyed property and led to the assaults of federal law enforcement. Advertisement 'We have not participated, coordinated, or been part of the protests being registered in Los Angeles other than the press conference and rally,' a CHIRLA rep previously told The Post in a statement. The group did not respond to a Post request for comment Tuesday. The ICE crackdown in the city rounded up convicted sexual abusers, drug dealers and gang members to put into removal proceedings, DHS officials said. 5 'The committee remains deeply concerned that NGOs that receive U.S. taxpayer dollars benefitted from the border crisis created by the Biden Administration,' Green wrote. REUTERS Advertisement Southwest Key Programs, another group being probed by Green's panel, was the largest housing nonprofit for unaccompanied migrant kids who entered the US and took around $3 billion in taxpayer funding from Biden's Health and Human Services — before Trump officials pulled the plug in March. Between 2021 and 2023, Southwest Key's top five executives saw their salaries inflated on average from $420,000 to $720,000 — even as the organization outspent its revenue by millions of dollars. The Justice Department sued Southwest Key Programs in July 2024, alleging that some supervisors and employees had committed 'severe' and 'pervasive' rape and sex abuse against kids between 2015 and 2023. The civil suit was dropped by the DOJ in March 2025, the same month that Trump's HHS cut off federal funding for the organization. 5 Green led the GOP charge in the House to impeach former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. AP Southwest Key 'strongly denied the claims relating to child sexual abuse in our shelters,' a rep previously said. The group did not respond to a Post request for comment Tuesday. Of the more than 550,000 migrant kids who entered the country between February 2021 and January 2025, at least 291,000 were released from federal custody to domestic sponsors — thousands of whom have since been flagged as sex abusers or gang members — and 32,000 went missing entirely, according to an August 2024 report from DHS's inspector general. On average, 2.4 million immigrants entered the US every year between 2021 and 2024, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Roughly 60% crossed the border illegally, a Goldman Sachs analysis found. Advertisement DHS subagencies such as ICE and the Federal Emergency Management Agency were tapped to 'coordinate with nonprofit organizations that provide services such as food, shelter, and transportation' for those non-citizens who were released, according to a Government Accountability Office report in April 2023. 5 President Trump pulled taxpayer funding for many immigration NGOs after returning to the White House. AP A March 2023 DHS Office of Inspector General audit revealed that 'more than half' of FEMA funding that went to NGOs couldn't be accounted for, Green notes in his letter. The GOP leader has previously called out $81 million in possibly 'illegal' funds that helped cover migrant stays in luxury New York City hotels. Advertisement Conservative immigration groups have previously estimated that the influx of migrants cost New York City residents as much as $10 billion and bilked US taxpayers up to $150 billion in 2023, the year when illegal border crossings reached their highest level in recorded history. Green led the GOP charge in the House to impeach former Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas for allegedly failing to comply with federal immigration law and lying to Congress that the border was 'secure.' The Republican missive requests the total dollar amount of federal grants, contracts or payments received by the NGOs between Jan. 19, 2021, and Jan. 20, 2025. It also demands to know whether any organization sued the feds and what services it provided to migrants. Influential left-leaning groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International and the Southern Poverty Law Center have all been asked to respond to the queries.
