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Embattled RI detention center gets new chief Central Falls, RI (AP) -- Chief Joseph Moran has long been familiar with the jail in his city where a Chinese immigrant was abused and denied medical care before dying of cancer: His office at police headquarters is just blocks away and his officers hold repeat curfew violators there until their parents pick them up. Now, Moran is getting a more intimate look inside the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility. Tapped two weeks ago to oversee the jail on at least an interim basis, he's reviewing the facility's operations and will recommend improvements all with an eye toward getting back the trust and business of the federal government, which withdrew 153 detainees last year after the death of Hiu Lui 'Jason' Ng, a 34-year-old Chinese computer engineer. The Associated Press

RI lawmakers to decide on E-Verify requirement Providence (AP) -- A bill requiring private companies to use the federal E-Verify database to check the immigration status of new hires was narrowly approved by state lawmakers Tuesday. House... RI city mayor nominates immigrant to detention center board Central Falls -- Mayor Charles D. Moreau has nominated a new candidate to serve on the governing board of the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility, the troubled lockup for federal... Novel financing plan saves RI ethnic businesses Central Falls, RI (AP) -- When a group of Cape Verdean restaurant and bar owners in Rhode Island needed money to keep up inventory last year, they didn't go to...

More Rhode Island Immigration News

RI E-Verify, voter fraud measures advance in legislature

Providence -- The issues have drawn fire from all sides. But Wednesday, there were no fireworks as separate General Assembly committees voted quickly and quietly to approve legislation seeking to crack down on both voter fraud and Rhode Island businesses...
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RI students protest Tancredo event

Providence, RI -- An estimated 300 Providence College students protested Wednesday afternoon outside the school gates against former Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo, a past Republican presidential candidate and outspoken opponent of illegal immigration. The students -- who wore multicolored paper-plate...
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RI mayor removes chairman of detention center

Central Falls, RI (AP) -- The chairman of a quasi-public jail where a Chinese immigrant was allegedly abused before he died has been fired for publicly comparing the facility to a motel or prison camp for terrorism suspects in Guantanamo...
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Tancredo finds new RI venue following college snub

Providence -- Tom Tancredo, former congressman from Colorado, Republican presidential candidate and outspoken opponent of illegal immigration, is scheduled to speak in Rhode Island on Wednesday. But he will not be addressing students at Providence College as he had originally...
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ACLU protests reinstatement of RI detention center

Providence -- The Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union has urged the state s congressional delegation to refrain from lobbying Immigration and Customs Enforcement to return immigrant detainees to the embattled Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in...
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RI detention facility's head fired

Providence, RI (AP) -- The head of a troubled Rhode Island detention facility has been fired. Executive board members voted Monday to terminate their contract with Anthony Ventetuolo, head of the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls. The...
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RI detention center manager facing ouster

Central Falls, RI -- The bitter breakup of the governing board of the troubled Wyatt Detention Facility and its management company may be entering it final stages, with the board chairman saying the manager may be fired Monday night and...
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Feds to release witness in RI detainee death

Providence -- The federal government is poised to release an immigrant detainee who is a key witness in the civil lawsuit and criminal investigation surrounding the death of Hiu Lui 'Jason' Ng, a Chinese national who died last summer while...
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RI court upholds governor's enforcement order

Providence -- The Carcieri administration won a sizable political victory when a Superior Court judge on Friday upheld the legality of his order requiring contractors doing business with the state to use the federal E-Verify database to screen the immigration...
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Activists probe RI detainee death

The hand-scrawled letter from a New Jersey jail was urgent. An immigration detainee had died that day, Sept. 9, 2005, a fellow inmate wrote in broken English, describing chest pains and pleas for medical attention that went unheeded until too...
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RI community feels pinch since loss of ICE detention contract

Central Falls, RI -- More than four months have passed since the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement abruptly emptied all of its immigrant detainees - 153 of them - from the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility. The sweeping move, prompted...
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RI authorities debate effect of Gov.'s immigration order

One year ago today, Governor Carcieri announced that he was cracking down on illegal immigration. Frustrated with federal inaction, Carcieri issued an executive order to stem 'an epidemic flow' of undocumented immigrants he said were draining state resources and bleeding...
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Feds probing death at RI detention center

Providence -- A federal criminal investigation is under way into the death of Hiu Lui 'Jason' Ng, an immigrant detainee, who died at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls last summer after corrections officers and nursing staff...
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