Despite other options, including medical deferred action, orders of supervision, and stays of removal, Detroit ICE Field Office Director Rebecca Adducci showed deliberate and callous indifference to human life.
Adducci deported disabled and ill people along with their care-givers; sent refugees back to kidnapping and death; neglected her duty of care in ICE detention; and disrespected the law. Because for Adducci, the cruelty was always the point.
Remember — these are only the cases that are public. There are many other examples of Rebecca Adducci’s cruelty that have never been made public, out of respect for privacy.
Deporting disabled and ill people.
“I almost collapsed on the floor the day [ICE] took me into custody. I was crying, to be honest, because I couldn’t believe it. The United States. The most powerful country in the world.” – Goura Ndiaye
Goura Ndiaye of Columbus was preparing for a hip replacement when he was unexpectedly detained by Adducci’s ICE. After several months in detention with no medical care, he was told he was being taken to see a doctor. Instead, he was brought to an airport for deportation. With his hip completely detached from his body, Goura was deported in shackles to Mauritania, a country he fled as a refugee decades ago. He has since filed a lawsuit regarding medical neglect in ICE custody.
Francis Anwana’s family sent him to the U.S. from Nigeria so he could live a better life as a deaf person with cognitive disabilities. Incredibly. Adducci tried to deport Francis after 34 years in the United States.
In the waning hours of the Trump Administration, Adducci insisted on deporting Maddeline Bartolon, her mother, and her sister to Guatemala. Maddeline was born with rickets that damaged her bones and kidneys. Surgeries left her disabled and in need of medical interventions not available in Guatemala. She and her mother and sister also fled an abusive home. In what amounts to a dramatic departure, at the very end of 2020, Detroit ICE granted the family a one year stay. The trauma of their pending deportation, though, continues.
After ICE detention where his kidney cancer and Hepatitis went untreated, 64 year-old Seyni Diagne was deported to Mauritania and immediately arrested. After paying a bribe to win freedom, Seyni now lives in exile in a third country and hopes to one day come back to his life in Ohio.
Deporting caregivers of disabled and ill people.
“She’s crying, ‘Please don’t leave me.’ I understand. I can’t leave her.” – Ded Rranxburgaj
Adducci deported Yancarlos Mendez of Cincinnati to the Dominican Republic in 2018. He was the sole financial provider for his six year-old stepson, Ricky, who was paralyzed in a car crash. Yancarlos was the only person trained to care for Ricky’s needs, other than Rickys’ mother Sandra.
She also deported Ibrahima Keita to Mali, despite the fact that his son, Solomon, could never join him there. Soloman has sickle cell anemia and would die without access to care in the United States.
Ded Rranxburgaj was forced to take sanctuary with his wife in the Central United Methodist Church, in Detroit, when Adducci refused to stay his deportation to Albania. Ded cares for his wife, Flora, who has multiple sclerosis and suffered a stroke. She is wheel-chair bound and too sick to travel, according to her doctors. Adducci’s ICE issued a press release calling Ded a “fugitive.”
Pedro Hernandez Ramirez of Lorain, Ohio, caregiver to his adult step-son Juan, who has severe cerebral palsy, was deported to Mexico in 2017. Pedro was the only person who could lift Juan in and out of his wheelchair to bathe or sleep. Nelson Perez, then the Bishop of Cleveland, attempted to appeal to ICE’s better angels. Still, Adducci denied Pedro’s stay. Pedro’s wife, Seleste, a U.S. citizen, said: “No ICE official can put a cap on the type of care my son [Juan] deserves. Has anyone stopped to think how they would like to be trapped in his body? His body don’t work for him, but his mind does. …. He deserves more than he gets, he deserves to be respected.”
Gheorghe Lates, a church leader and father of a young daughter with a heart defect, was targeted for deportation by Adducci’s ICE who enlisted the help of Rocky River police to arrest him. They shattered the window of Gheorghe’s minivan while he was trying to call his lawyer. The community rallied around Gheorghe. “You know as a parent, you don’t think of yourself in that moment, you think of your kids, and you think what’s best and that was his instant reaction, probably that’s why he didn’t get out, not because he disrespected anyone,” said Church secretary Mihaela Hetruc.
Deporting people to kidnapping and death.
“They beat him the whole time and starved him. He is still suffering from head and neck injuries (from a car accident in Ohio) so he is in a great deal of pain. They kept saying they would kill him.” – Girlfriend of Francisco Narciso
“He died alone. It’s unfair.” – Mary Bolis, Jimmy Aldaoud’s sister.
After nearly thirty years in the United States, Adducci targeted Alfredo Ramos of Painesville for deportation. In September 2018, his children received a call that no one ever wants to accept. “Ramos had been killed, executed with 27 shots by a rampaging drug gang who mistook him for a rival trafficker. His children watched the funeral by video.”
Jimmy Aldaoud was born in Greece and came to the U.S. when he was just 15 months old. Nevertheless, Adducci and her ICE henchmen deported him to Iraq, a country he’d never been in. Suffering from diabetes and mental illness, knowing no one in Iraq, Jimmy died alone. Said Jimmy’s sisters: “They just picked up a random homeless person from Detroit and threw him in Iraq. They took advantage of his mental state. They didn’t give him that phone call — they scared him onto that plane.”
Francisco Narciso was deported to Mexico after coming in contact with law enforcement during a car crash, leaving behind his girlfriend and two children. He was kidnapped and held for ransom in Mexico, locked in a room full of hostages, beaten and starved for days. Narcisco’s captors contacted his girlfriend in the U.S. and demanded money for his release.
Alfredo Ramos, beloved father of U.S. citizens, was gunned down in Mexico after being deported by Rebecca Adducci. “We are a family that knows right from wrong. But we believed there would be a pathway for him to something legal,” said Ramos’ sister in law.
Terrorizing communities with mass workplace raids.
“[ICE] has become an unaccountable paramilitary force whose main goal seems to be executing violent attacks upon the most vulnerable members of our society.” – Ohio Student Association
Under Adducci’s management, Detroit ICE carried out some of the largest workplace raids ever, with military weapons and K-9s. In June 2018, 200 ICE agents arrested 114 people in Sandusky and Castilia, Ohio, many of them women, between two different locations of Corso’s Flowers and Garden Center. Dressed in plain clothes, undercover ICE agents began luring immigrant workers with free donuts, claiming to be conducting a health inspection. Once the agents corralled the workers, a battalion of ICE agents barged into the building with K-9s and military weapons. News of the raid echoed throughout the town, leading some to leave their cars stranded on the road, bus riders to panic, and churches to take care of the children of those detained during the raid.
The same month, Detroit ICE conducted another workplace raid, apprehending 145 people at Fresh Mark meatpacking plants, many of whom had legal work permits. Agents carried machine guns to arrest immigrant workers. Abuse of workers like Domino Ramos, who was killed after his foot became caught in a rotating auger, were left un-investigated.
Deporting refugees to the countries they fled.
“I almost collapsed on the floor the day they took me into custody. I was crying, to be honest, because I couldn’t believe it. Everybody fought to go to the United States because they said only the United States can help. That encouraged me to come to the United States. That’s why I couldn’t believe that day that they were going to deport me. I did nothing wrong. I love this country. Mauritania stripped me of my citizenship. Otherwise, I never would have gone to America.” – Goura Ndiaye
Rebecca Adducci deported Black Mauritanians to a country that killed their families, and still refuses to recognize them as citizens. When Seyni Diagne was deported to Mauritania, he was arrested and tortured until he paid a bribe to obtain release. This happened to many Black Mauritanians deported in the Trump Administration. Seyni also has liver cancer and Hepatitis-C, which went untreated while he was in ICE’s control.
Issa Sao from Cincinnati was deported to Mauritania by Adducci in 2018. Sao had built a life with his American wife and two children after fleeing the genocide in his native country. Deported in shackles, he had to flee to Senegal to find a measure of safety and dreams of reuniting with his wife and children in the United States.
Adducci’s ICE also decided to arrest and deport scores of Iraqi Christians who had fled their country decades ago and built lives in the United States. The ACLU called these “death deportations,” explaining that if they are deported to Iraq, they would be targeted by violent extremist groups. After winning the right to deport them in court, Adducci called the decision a “decisive victory.”
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals found Maribel Trujillo-Diaz of Fairfield, Ohio was wrongly deported and Adduccis’ ICE was forced to bring her back. A major drug cartel in Mexico had specifically threatened her, but the BIA refused to consider this evidence before ordering her deportation.
Neglecting a basic duty of care in ICE detention.
“I am shocked and appalled at the way detainees have been treated, and the utter disregard for their safety and lives.” – Dr. Laura Chambers-Kersh
The Morrow County Correctional Facility, housing dozens of men for ICE, became 100% COVID-positive due to gross neglect, cutting corners, and incompetence. Advocates warned the public and the County Health District that the jail was ignoring COVID prevention protocols. An ACLU of Ohio lawsuit forced the release of some ICE detainees. In the order mandating their release, U.S. District Judge Sara D. Morrison called the situation “reckless and irresponsible.” The decision came too late for Óscar López Acosta of Dayton, who died after contracting COVID in the Morrow County Jail, leaving a wife and children behind.
Two men from Africa, Bayong Brown Bayong and Ahmed Adem, sued the Butler County Jail, another ICE detention facility in Ohio, after experiencing multiple assaults and racial epithets at the hands of corrections officers. Despite a judge’s order, a key witness in the case, Mory Keita, was deported to Guinea in late 2020. Dozens of other men detained at this jail have also spoken out against the ongoing abuse, which ICE has failed to even acknowledge.
Disrespecting the law.
“It’s little wonder, with folks like Adducci in charge, that some politicians are calling for the feel-good gesture of simply doing away with ICE. But what is really needed is a concerted effort … to make the agency abide by the rule of law that applies to all who arrive within these borders.” – Boston Globe Editorial Board
Detroit ICE tried to deport Jilmar Ramos-Gomez, a U.S. citizen and military veteran, despite the fact that he had his U.S passport on him when he was detained. The city of Grand Rapids was forced to pay $190.000 in damages for their role in his unlawful detention.
Adducci’s field office was also one of five others that unlawfully denied parole and held asylum-seekers in detention after they passed their credible fear interview. Ansly Damus, who twice won asylum in court, was the lead plaintiff in an ACLU case that forced ICE to follow the law. Now, he dreams of reuniting with his family. “This morning I called my son and he tells me, ‘Papi, I need to see you!’ I told him, ‘OK, one day you will come and I will play with you.”
While seconded to the Boston ICE office, Adducci brought her disrespect for the law with her. She conspired with U.S. immigration and Citizenship Services to arrest immigrants who were married to U.S. citizens and lawfully pursuing immigration status. In a 62-page order, a senior federal judge described “repeated violations of Department of Homeland Security regulations, and the due-process clause of the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution, in the detention of aliens by the Boston Field Office that Ms. Adducci now directs.”
When cruelty is the point.
“It’s a very sad day here at Sava’s. We have a lot of people who have family roots here.” – Sava Lelcaj
“Evidently seized by a vainglorious notion of its mission, ICE too often discounts basic decency as a guiding tenet.” – Washington Post Editorial Board
“Thank you for the breakfast. Now, I’m arresting you.” Agents from the Detroit Field Office praised the chef at an Ann Arbor, MI restaurant before rounding up and detaining employees in the kitchen.
Despite support from the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee, Adducci deported Amer Adi to Jordan after four decades in the United States. Adi is beloved father and husband of U.S. citizens, and a business man credited for revitalizing Youngstown’s downtown. “I don’t understand it, I opened a business here when no one else wanted to. I have been fighting this deportation for almost 23 years, I thought we had it solved. But when Donald Trump was elected I knew I was in trouble.”
About Adi’s deportation, the Cleveland Plain Dealer Editorial Board wrote; “ICE needs to be scrutinized in this case. Congress should insist that ICE explain this and other rushed deportations of longtime U.S. residents who are pillars of their communities, churches and families. And, yes, ICE should thoroughly review Adi’s case and publicly explain its actions.
A Washington Post editorial condemning Trump Administration deportations “featured” many of Addducci’s bad decisions.Noe Lopez-Mulato, a father of two U.S. citizen children, was deported despite having provided crucial testimony in a gun assault case, and having a pending U visa application in relation to the crime. As the Post’s Editorial Board said: “Cruelty now seems no impediment to its enforcement decisions and common sense appears to play a diminishing role.”
The Detroit ICE Field Office served as a testing ground for DHS’s DNA collection program, which collected DNA samples from people who crossed the border “without authorization,” as young as fourteen years old. At the end of September 2020, the program was expanded to all of Michigan and Ohio and will be implemented nationwide.
Adducci’s agents also targeted schools as parents dropped off their children. ICE agents surrounded Hope of Detroit Academy elementary school, located in a predominantly Latino community in Detroit. Driving six large SUVs, ICE began to target parents as they dropped off their children; two families were detained. The following year ICE targeted parents at schools in the same area.
Edith Espinal, a national leader who took refuge in the Columbus Mennonite Church in order to remain in the same country as her children, was fined nearly $500,000 by Adducci’s ICE. Now, she is suing the government for its abject cruelty.“We decided to participate in this lawsuit because the fines were really unjustified and what we want is for these fines to be removed, What we also want is for ICE to get rid of this rule that allowed for the fines because we don’t want other people to be given fines like we were because they’re very unjust.”
Adducci’s ICE detained immigrants jet skiing on Lake Erie, perhaps guilty of the unconscionable crime of fishing without a license. ““During the summer months Lake Erie is one of the busiest boating communities in the nation. This case is a testament to our highly skilled law enforcement ability to differentiate between legitimate boat traffic and nefarious traffic,” said U.S Border Patrol while turning the men over to Detroit ICE.. Feel safer? That is a rhetorical question.
Papa Doumbia, father of four U.S. citizens and a business man was deported to Ivory Coast despite broad community support. Rep. Rashida Tllabi said Papa Doumbia “was forcibly taken through security through the airport and was not mentally prepared to leave his family. Corporations like United need to stand with all of us and advocate that the U.S. Congress and this administration to fix our broken immigration system.”