Home/ Facilities/ Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility — New England's Quasi-Public ICE Hub
Facility quasi-public-jail Operational

Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility — New England's Quasi-Public ICE Hub

Providence, RI FIPS 44007
~770 beds total; ICE population ~100-102 in 2025-2026 (≈17% of facility)
Bed capacity
Operator: Central Falls Detention Facility Corporation (quasi-public municipal corporation)

Overview

The Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, Rhode Island (Providence County, FIPS 44007) is a ~770-bed quasi-public jail operated by the Central Falls Detention Facility Corporation, a municipal public-benefit corporation rather than a for-profit company like CoreCivic or GEO. It is Rhode Island’s only ICE detention site and functions as the de facto ICE-holding hub for New England: people arrested by ICE across the Boston Area of Responsibility — including sanctuary states with no detention of their own (Connecticut, Massachusetts, and parts of New Hampshire and Maine) — are routinely held at Wyatt while their cases proceed. Because federal habeas petitions must be filed in the district where a detainee is physically held, Wyatt’s role as a regional hub has made the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island the venue for a dramatic 2025-2026 surge in immigration habeas litigation.

Wyatt carries a long and controversial history, including the 2008 death of Hiu Lui “Jason” Ng, whose terminal cancer and broken spine went untreated in custody — a death that prompted ICE to pull its detainees in December 2008. ICE detention resumed at Wyatt in 2019 and has continued through the second Trump administration, drawing sustained protest and “Close the Wyatt” legislation.

Key Details

  • Location: 950 High Street, Central Falls, RI (Providence County, FIPS 44007)
  • Facility type: Quasi-public/quasi-private jail run by the Central Falls Detention Facility Corporation, a municipal public-benefit corporation
  • Capacity: ~770 beds total (mixed population — US Marshals, other federal detainees, and ICE)
  • ICE population: ~100+ throughout 2025; 102 as of April 28, 2026, about 17% of the total facility population
  • ICE contract history: ICE held detainees at Wyatt 2005-2008; ICE withdrew its remaining ~153 detainees in December 2008 after Jason Ng’s death; ICE detention resumed in 2019 (contract renewed March 10, 2019) and has continued through 2025-2026
  • Regional role: Destination for the NH/MA/CT/ME transfer pipeline within ICE ERO Boston’s Area of Responsibility

Why It Matters

Wyatt is the structural linchpin of New England detention. Strong sanctuary laws in Connecticut (TRUST Act) and Massachusetts mean those states host little or no ICE detention — so the people ICE arrests there are funneled to Wyatt (and to Plymouth County MA, Strafford County NH, Cumberland County ME, and FCI Berlin NH). That concentration is exactly why RI’s federal habeas docket exploded: detainees from across the region must litigate where they are held.

The Habeas Wave (2025-2026)

  • Since the start of the second Trump administration, RI’s federal courthouse has received 135 habeas corpus petitions, with nearly 90% challenging federal immigration decisions — versus just 5 habeas cases in all of 2024.
  • 59 immigration-detention challenges were filed in 2026 year-to-date (by April), equaling the full-year 2025 total.
  • The habeas share of the court’s civil docket jumped from 2.4% to 33% in roughly two years — described by the court as “a development without modern precedent.”
  • April 13, 2026: Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. issued a general order temporarily suspending the local-counsel requirement, allowing out-of-state attorneys to represent detainees pro bono without joining the RI federal bar — a direct response to the volume (and to the fact that many detainees live out of state but are held at Wyatt). The order followed a March 30, 2026 petition by three attorney groups.

Conditions & Complaints (2026)

  • A 2026 report by AMOR (Alliance to Mobilize Our Resistance), backed by FOIA records, documented filthy/dirty drinking water (facility records noted water “coming out dirty” in a March report; day-room water flagged for checking), hunger, medical neglect, exorbitant fees, and arbitrary punishment. One detainee reported nausea and diarrhea from unclean water; an advocate sent roughly 60 bottles of water.
  • Over the facility’s 30+ year history there have been multiple credible mistreatment allegations and at least four detainee deaths in custody.
  • Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-RI) visited ICE detainees at Wyatt in February 2026 and called on fellow members of Congress to do the same.
  • The Bishop of Providence has led recurring “Rosary for Migrants” gatherings outside the facility.

“Close the Wyatt” Politics

  • 2026 legislation: Senate Bill 2278 and House Bill 7436 would cancel the ICE contract at Wyatt and bar RI state/municipal entities from entering or renewing federal civil-immigration detention contracts — modeled on laws in six other states. Central Falls legislators Sen. Jonathan Acosta and Rep. Joshua Giraldo are lead sponsors.
  • May 5, 2026: The RI Senate Judiciary Committee advanced only one of seven immigration-related bills; the Close-the-Wyatt measures stalled, but advocates pledged to keep pushing.
  • May 4, 2026: AMOR-organized rally outside Wyatt in support of the contract-ban bills.
  • May 7, 2026: The Central Falls Detention Facility Corporation made a $250,000 host-fee payment to the City of Central Falls — its first payment since 2021 and reportedly the largest impact fee since 2008 — underscoring the facility’s financial entanglement with the cash-strapped city.
  • RI, along with Providence and Central Falls, appears on DHS’s list of ~500 “sanctuary jurisdictions” that may lose federal funding.

Historical Context

  • 2008: Hiu Lui “Jason” Ng, 34, a New Yorker detained at his green-card interview, died at Wyatt after months of untreated back pain; he was found to have terminal liver cancer and a broken spine and died five days after finally seeing a doctor. ICE withdrew its detainees that December; the family’s lawsuit settled for a multi-million-dollar payment in 2012.
  • 2019: ICE detention resumed; an August 2019 protest ended when a Wyatt corrections captain, Thomas Woodworth, drove a pickup truck into a human chain of demonstrators, injuring several; he resigned.
  • 2020: ACLU class-action litigation (Yanes et al. v. ICE) won bail hearings and conditional release for dozens of detainees during COVID-19.

Sources

Edit Report issue County profile
Last updated: May 29, 2026