ICE’s Midnight Transfers Tear Immigrants from Their Lives and Lawyers

In the dead of night, “D,” a Guatemalan immigrant who has called Providence home for 20 years, was jolted awake by ICE guards banging on his cell door at the Wyatt Detention Center in Rhode Island. Without explanation, he and several others were ordered to pack and leave immediately. D was shackled so tightly during the cramped van ride to a federal prison in New Hampshire that his wrists bled.

D’s story is far from unique. Immigration lawyers and advocates warn that ICE’s escalating practice of rapid, out-of-state transfers is becoming a deliberate tactic that undermines detainees’ access to legal counsel and shreds family connections. A 2025 Los Angeles Times analysis found that 12% of detainees had been moved at least four times, a spike from previous years.

The Wyatt Detention Facility and ICE refused to comment on these transfers. But the impact is clear: detainees like D face terrifying uncertainty, unable to communicate with loved ones or their lawyers. D feared deportation without a chance to say goodbye and worried about being moved again at any moment.

For lawyers, these transfers are a nightmare. Elise McCaffery, who represented D, explained that tracking clients becomes a logistical maze, and new facilities often have stricter visitation rules. Worse, detainees may be shifted into different judicial districts where judges are unfamiliar with the client’s history and legal rights, severely weakening their defense.

To combat this, attorneys are increasingly filing habeas corpus petitions to halt transfers and force ICE to justify continued detention. In Rhode Island, such filings surged from 5 in 2024 to over 130 in early 2026. The local federal court even allowed out-of-state lawyers to represent detainees to manage the caseload.

ICE’s rapid expansion of detention sites—using 104 more facilities by late 2025, a 91% increase—coupled with aggressive transfers, reveals a system prioritizing disruption over due process. For immigrants like D, it means being torn from the life they built, shuffled through a broken system that treats them as pawns rather than people.

This isn’t just bureaucratic chaos. It’s a calculated assault on immigrant rights, legal fairness, and family unity. And it’s happening under the watch of an administration that claims to uphold the rule of law. We’ll keep shining a light on these abuses until justice is restored.