Diossa Lobbied for ICE to Bring Prisoners to Wyatt, Prison of Death and Financial Chaos

Diossa Lobbied for ICE to Bring Prisoners to Wyatt, Prison of Death and Financial Chaos

In 2015, Central Falls Mayor James Diossa lobbied the Rhode Island congressional delegation to work to bring the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) prisoners to Wyatt. At the time, it was critical to the financial viability of the facility — and necessary for the city to keep its $50,000 a month impact fee paid by the prison.

Diossa refused to comment for this article, but a spokesman says, “There is a big difference between immigration detainees who were at Wyatt previously and this new [President Donald] Trump initiative. The 'Southwest Border Zero Tolerance Initiative' was announced in May 2018 by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to detain and prosecute anyone caught crossing the border. This set into motion the systematic – and as we have since learned, chaotic - separation of children from their parents."

Data shows however that under President Barack Obama, in multiple years his administration deported more than 400,000 immigrants a year -- far more than his predecessor George H.W. Bush or his successor Trump.

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In contrast to Obama’s 400,000 deportations a year, President Ronald Reagan’s high was less than 20,000 in a single year. Obama earned from both the left and right the title "Deporter and Chief."

Latest for Wyatt

Wyatt generated millions in revenue from ICE until the death of Hiu Lui “Jason” Ng, a Chinese national who died at the prison. By 2010, ICE had removed all prisoners and the Rhode Island ACLU had named eight more defendants, including Memorial Hospital, in its suit over the death of Hiu Lui “Jason” Ng, a detainee at the Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls.

Ng died in August 2008 after complaining for months about being in excruciating pain. The ACLU said guards and medical staff at Wyatt had accused him of faking his pain and denied him medical care. He was later diagnosed with terminal liver cancer and a broken spine, less than a week before his death, according to the ACLU.

Besides Memorial Hospital, the other named defendants were an emergency room doctor, three correctional officers, a medical officer at Wyatt, and two nurses—all of whom are accused of failing to provide Ng care.

“The addition of more Wyatt staff as defendants demonstrates just how widespread the misbehavior at the facility was,” said Robert McConnell, an attorney at Motley Rice LLC who handled the case for the ACLU, in 2010. “Jason’s treatment cannot be attributed to merely a rogue officer or two.”

After the controversies tied to Ng's death, ICE refused to send prisoners to the Central Falls prison. Besides Diossa, members of the Rhode Island Congressional delegation lobbied for the federal agency to restore the prisoner and detainee pipeline in order to keep Wyatt financially viable.

With or without the ICE prisoners, Wyatt has been a controversial facility.

A 2008 New York Times article, titled, “City of Immigrants Fills Jail Cells With Its Own,” featured the prison.  The story outlined the financial collapse and how the prison had been manipulated for personal financial gain:

But the deal that emerged, like many elsewhere, proved better at paying private investors than generating public revenue. The municipal corporation borrowed $30 million through a state bond issue to build Wyatt, and hired the Cornell company to run it. Six years later, the municipal body borrowed $38 million to refinance, buying back most of the bonds at a premium that gave the original bondholders a lump-sum return of 28.5 percent on their investment in addition to 9 percent annual interest.

And from its opening party in November 1993, Wyatt ran into the same problem as its competitors: finding enough inmates. For a time it imported murderers and rapists by the busload from North Carolina’s crowded prisons. When city residents objected, they learned that Central Falls had no control over who was housed at Wyatt and would get no money unless it was full.

At best, Wyatt paid Central Falls $2 to $3 a day for each detainee — less than $400,000 in the good years — to offset its use of city services. At times when the flow of inmates faltered, payments slowed to a trickle. Yet, following the strange logic of prison growth, Cornell and Wyatt officials were soon pushing to refinance yet again and expand.

Thomas Lazieh, the mayor who had championed the deal that built Wyatt, defended it as the best the city could get. His successor, Lee Matthews, took a darker view and sued to stop the expansion. “The city was sold a bill of goods,” he said.

Wyatt doubled in size anyway, with the backing of the current mayor, Charles D. Moreau. Convinced that it could wrest more revenue from the jail as immigration enforcement boomed, the municipal corporation took full control in August 2007. The budget it approved late that year included $6,000 a month for a Washington lobbyist to seek more detainees at higher rates.