“Bring Chan home!”
That was the chant of more than 100 demonstrators outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office off Jefferson Boulevard in Warwick Wednesday afternoon. They were demanding the release of Chansareth Hong, a Cambodian refugee who has lived in Providence since arriving as an infant in the 1970s.
“We want folks to direct the energy towards here to see if he can hear us because the walls are not the strongest,” one demonstrator instructed the others at the 1 p.m. protest.
But Hong was already gone.
An hour into the demonstration, one of its organizers alerted the crowd he had been transferred to the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls “without us being able to see it” — likely before the protest even began.
“But we’re not going to stop the fight because he’s at the Wyatt,” Jenni Nguyen, deportation defense organizer for the Providence Youth Student Movement, said.
Hong’s attorney filed a petition at 12:30 p.m. in U.S. District Court in Providence asking a federal judge to release him, claiming ICE’s detention violates the due process clause of the U.S. Constitution. Local, state and federal leaders have also tried to intervene in ensuring Hong remains in Rhode Island.
Gov. Dan McKee wrote a letter Tuesday to David Wesling, the acting director of ICE’s Boston field office, demanding that federal officers not detain Hong after checked in to a scheduled hearing at the Warwick office.
“I urge you not to inflict irreversible and devastating trauma on Mr. Hong and his family,” McKee wrote. “It would be a perverse result indeed for Mr. Hong to have worked toward and embodied the ideals of his community here in Rhode Island, only to suffer a hasty removal by the federal government.”
Noah Boucher, a spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner, said the congressman’s office has been in contact with Hong’s legal team and has advocated directly to ICE on his behalf.
Court filings show Hong was notified by ICE on May 26 that he would have to appear at the Warwick field office because federal officers intended to detain him and “supposedly to remove him to Cambodia” — a country he never once stepped foot in.
Born in Thailand to Cambodian refugees, Hong came to the United States at one month old in 1976 and has lived in Providence ever since. He is now the primary caregiver for his 9-year-old autistic son and his elderly mother, responsibilities that grew after the deaths of his son’s mother in 2025 and his father in June.
His niece, Vanessa, described him as a caring and humorous man who has been a provider “in every possible way, mentally, financially” to the family.
“We really just want him back,” she told reporters.
ICE instead depicts Hong as a “a criminal illegal alien,” citing a 1997 conviction for possession of heroin with intent to deliver.
“Hong was issued a final order of removal by an immigration judge on Oct. 1, 1999,” an ICE spokesperson said in a statement to Rhode Island Current. “He has remained in the United States illegally for over 26 years in violation of our country’s laws.”
But Hong’s habeas petition argues he was released under an order of supervision rather than to be immediately deported. The filing notes the arrangement required him to regularly report to ICE and assist in obtaining any necessary travel documents, among other conditions.
“Mr. Hong has continued to comply with his order,” the filing states.
So much so that he still went ahead with his scheduled check-in at ICE’s field office Wednesday afternoon, knowing it would lead to his detention. Demonstrators blocked the entrance of the parking lot in hopes of preventing any unmarked vans from leaving with Hong.
“After decades of living with his family and complying with ICE check-ins, there is no plausible argument for ICE to hold Chansareth in a prison cell while he continues to follow the legal process,” Sophia de los Reyes of the Alliance to Mobilize Our Resistance told the crowd.
Advocates are calling on McKee and Attorney General Peter Neronha to intervene on what it describes as “this miscarriage of justice.”
Neronha told Rhode Island Current at this point, his hands are tied.
“Federal immigration policy is in the hands of the federal government,” he said in an interview before the protest. “The states don’t have any role in that space.”
The AG sympathized with Hong’s story, but said any relief would have to come from his attorney in immigration court.
“We don’t represent individuals and certainly don’t have any authority in the Supremacy Clause over the federal government,” Neronha said.
A few elected officials were on site for Wednesday afternoon’s demonstration. Rep. David Morales, a Providence Democrat running for mayor of the city, joined Providence City Councilors Sue AnderBois and Juan Pichardo in demanding Hong’s release to the security and officers present outside.
AnderBois and Pichardo were among 13 council members who signed a July 20 letter to Wesling asking ICE to stop Hong’s detention and removal and reevaluate his request to stay in the city he has called home for almost 50 years.
“It is, in fact, the only home he has ever known,” the Providence councilors wrote.
They noted that Hong has “maintained a clean record for decades and devoted those years to working, caring for his family, and rebuilding his life,” and that he has since taken responsibility and worked to move on from “making mistakes as a young man.”
“Deporting him now would not undo the events of his youth and would provide no public safety benefit to our city,” the councilors wrote. “Justice, compassion, family unity, and the interests of our city all weigh overwhelmingly against his detention and deportation.”
Providence Mayor Brett Smiley, who did not attend the Warwick protest, denounced ICE’s effort to deport Hong in a statement Tuesday.
“Providence is made stronger by neighbors from around the world and from every walk of life, whose hard work has helped make our city what it is today,” he said.
Chinsareth, Hong’s brother, thanked members of the crowd for their support while the family works to figure out the path ahead.
“We feel a great sense of relief with you all here, standing with us for what is right,” he said.
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