Seeking Answers After ICE Arrest - The Vineyard Gazette

When Oshantay Waite didn’t hear from her father, Newton Waite, for several hours one Friday, her first thought was to call around to local hospitals.

It was Sept. 26, 2025, and Mr. Waite, a longtime Vineyarder and chef-owner at Vineyard Caribbean Cuisine in Oak Bluffs, had gone off-Island for his weekly trip to buy groceries for his business. When he stopped responding to texts, Ms. Waite, her 18-year-old sister and their mother became worried.

“My father, he doesn’t take longer than maybe two hours to get back to you,” Ms. Waite said.

A detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers was not among the possibilities that crossed the family’s mind.

Ms. Waite said her father, born in Jamaica, was in the process of securing his permanent U.S. resident status but unknowingly missed a court date, the notification for which was delivered to the wrong address. To her knowledge, he was working with his lawyer to resolve the issue, and there was no warrant out for his arrest. She added that he doesn’t have a criminal record.

“He was just trying to get another court date with immigration... but that was the only thing. He was here in the country legally,” she said.

The following morning, Mr. Waite called his family to say he had been arrested by ICE officers in Falmouth.

“He was like, I was just shopping for the restaurant, and they just came up to my truck and arrested me,” she recalled.

Five months later, Mr. Waite remains in custody at Buffalo Service Processing Center in Batavia, N.Y., the largest ICE holding facility in the state.

For Ms. Waite, life since her father’s detention has revolved around advocating for his release and picking up the pieces of the Vineyard life he left behind.

“I don’t know how to describe this experience, because it just feels like it gets worse and worse,” she told the Gazette in a recent interview. “You could be in the middle of trying to do anything else, and you’re getting a call from him, and then you’re reminded of it.... It takes over your entire life.”

It’s a story that’s become increasingly common over the past year as the Trump administration continues bearing down on its use of federal immigration forces nationwide, including on the Vineyard, which saw a string of ICE arrests last May.

As of mid-February, nearly 70,000 people were held in America’s ICE detention centers, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a nonpartisan, U.S.-based immigration research group. Of that number, almost three-quarters have no criminal convictions, per TRAC. A search of the Massachusetts district court records turned up no criminal cases for Mr. Waite.

Mr. Waite first arrived on the Vineyard in 2006. Initially working at the Mansion House and as a cab driver, he soon began cooking Jamaican food that he packaged and hand-delivered to a small base of loyal clients.

In 2017, the small operation became Vineyard Caribbean Cuisine, the brick-and-mortar takeout spot off the main stretch of Circuit avenue. Mr. Waite has offered the restaurant’s catering services at numerous Island events, including the NAACP’s Taste of Juneteenth luncheon.

Ms. Waite attended high school on the Island and now lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., where she runs an arts organization for creatives of color. But in the months since her father’s detainment, she’s been traveling regularly between New York and the Island to help her mother and sister keep Vineyard Caribbean Cuisine running.

Ms. Waite said that her father normally woke up at 4 a.m., six days a week, to open the restaurant. Making up for his absence, she said, is tremendously difficult, especially given that renting the kitchen alone costs thousands of dollars per month.

“I’ve always had to help my family out, but [now] it’s completely different,” she said.

She is also in touch with Mr. Waite at all hours of the day, helping him through the legal process and supporting him emotionally and financially. The family pays to communicate with him daily through the Getting Out app and sends him money through Access Corrections, which costs hundreds of dollars per week.

“Paying for a detained person to live is expensive,” she said.

Ms. Waite attributes her father’s extended detention in large part to his previous legal counsel, whom she described as “prejudiced” and said insufficiently supported him throughout his ongoing case and the early weeks of his detention.

Mr. Waite’s new lawyer, Halinka Zolcik, is an accredited representative with the Prisoners’ Legal Service of New York. She told the Gazette that before his detention, Mr. Waite was in the process of becoming a permanent U.S. resident through Ms. Waite, who can petition on his behalf as his child and a U.S. citizen. She said it was his former counsel’s fault, not his, that he missed his court date, resulting in a deportation order that his counsel also did not notify him of. Something, she said, fell through the cracks.

“He’s living his life thinking that everything is being taken care of, until one day, he’s torn out of his life and picked up by immigration,” she said. “He’s been trying to do all the right things. He just really shouldn’t be in detention right now.”

Mr. Waite has been held at two different detention centers since being taken into custody: the Batavia facility, where he is currently, and the Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center in Pine Prairie, La. At one point, ICE officers almost put Mr. Waite on a plane to Mexico, despite the fact that he has no ties to the country, his daughter said.

Ms. Waite described the conditions her father experienced at the Louisiana detention center as “horrible.” The Louisiana Illuminator, a news publication based in Baton Rouge, reported in November that the facility was at more than double its capacity, presenting a dire overcrowding problem that she attested to on Mr. Waite’s behalf.

“They were fighting over beds, which are just little flat pallets,” she said. “Every time I called him, it was like he was in an auditorium full of people.... His head was hurting him so bad.”

The conditions in Batavia, Ms. Waite said, are similarly horrific.

“He’s not okay,” she said.

In October, the Investigative Post, a watchdog news publication, reported severe overcrowding at Batavia, with the 650-bed facility holding an average of 727 detainees since June. The Intercept, another publication, reported in November that detainees at the facility were receiving inadequate medical treatment, and multiple sources have reported that administrators have made it difficult, or even impossible, for books and essential items to reach detainees.

Ms. Waite said it took two months of “constant complaining” to successfully send Mr. Waite his glasses and claimed detention center administrators have not allowed the family to send him books or photos.

“He’s been asking for pictures of me and my sister for two weeks,” she said.

At Batavia, Ms. Waite said her father has reported lacking consistent access to drinking water and relies on drinking water from a pipe in the bathroom.

She added that, according to Mr. Waite, several detainees at Batavia have developed severe illnesses while in custody. She said he has been experiencing heart problems and that his hair has turned white from stress.

Ms. Waite has traveled a few times to the New York facility to visit her father in person. She described the visits as brief, strictly controlled and often not as long as promised.

“It’s not like regular prison, where the inmate can come out and maybe hug you for two seconds,” she said. “He’s behind the glass. I have to put my hand up to the glass to pretend I’m touching him.”

Detainees in ICE facilities are subject to a 90-day review, during which agents may choose to allow a release pending removal from the country or continued legal proceedings. Ms. Waite and Ms. Zolcik both noted that Mr. Waite has a stay of removal, meaning he cannot legally be deported while his immigration case is progressing.

Ms. Waite said that at her father’s 90-day review, authorities at Batavia determined him to be a “flight risk” and elected to hold him for another 90 days. She expressed bewilderment about the decision given his lack of a criminal record.

“If ICE had decided to release him, he could at least be out waiting for his case to be reopened,” she said.

Ms. Zolcik said she’s been advocating for ICE to release Mr. Waite on account of his worsening heart problems, but to no avail.

“On the ICE side, it’s difficult to get them to do anything, probably because of orders from above,” Ms. Zolcik said.

ICE spokespeople did not respond to a recent request for comment from the Gazette about why Mr. Waite is still detained. In December, ICE wrote to the Gazette that Mr. Waite entered the United States legally and alleged that he was detained because he committed marriage fraud, the details of which were unspecified.

Both Ms. Waite and Ms. Zolcik said ICE’s marriage fraud claim has no backing.

“To date, I haven’t seen any evidence of fraud in his file,” Ms. Zolcik said. “It’s my belief that it doesn’t add up.”

As Mr. Waite approaches six months of detention, Ms. Zolcik said he is entering the territory of what is legally known as a “prolonged detention.” She is filing a habeas corpus petition to get Mr. Waite seen by a judge with the hope that he’ll be able to get out on bond.

“Presumably, you should have some sort of review by a judge at that point,” she said.

While trying to find Mr. Waite a path out of detention, Ms. Zolcik is also attempting to right Mr. Waite’s original immigration case, which is now with the Board of Immigration Appeals, the highest judicial body for interpreting immigration law in the U.S. She and the Waites have been waiting for action from the board since November.

Though Ms. Zolcik said the board is certainly backed up with a high volume of cases, she’s frustrated that Mr. Waite’s case hasn’t been heard sooner.

“I definitely find that very unfair,” she said.

Meanwhile, Ms. Waite said she’s been working tirelessly to secure her father’s release. Part of her daily routine is corresponding with elected officials and local advocacy organizations, including the Vineyard chapter of the NAACP.

MV NAACP president Shawn Ramoutar wrote a letter of support to Congress advocating for an end to Mr. Waite’s detention. In the letter, he spoke highly of Mr. Waite’s impact on the Island community over the past two decades, recalling all of the Thanksgivings Mr. Waite has spent preparing free meals for Islanders in need and his long history of support for the NAACP.

“Mr. Waite poses no danger to anyone,” the letter reads. “In fact, every day that he remains locked up, our Island community feels the loss of one of its best citizens.”

The Waites and the MV NAACP also got the attention of U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, who represents the state’s seventh congressional district.

Representative Pressley’s office did not return the Gazette’s request for comment, but Mr. Ramoutar and Ms. Waite provided the Gazette a communication from the office calling for Mr. Waite’s release.

“According to Mr. Waite’s legal counsel, Mr. Waite entered the U.S. with a visa and has no criminal record,” the letter of support reads. “His detention did not arise from any conduct that would endanger public safety but rather stems from a series of administrative and legal complications related to a withdrawn marriage-based petition, inconsistent and delayed correspondence from the courts, and ineffective assistance from prior counsel.”

In an interview with the Gazette, Mr. Ramoutar referred to Mr. Waite’s ongoing detainment as “a fiasco of biblical proportions.”

“This is not someone who came to this country that’s a murderer or a criminal,” Mr. Ramoutar told the Gazette. “You took a local businessman and kidnapped him.”

As for where to turn next, Mr. Ramoutar said he’s at a loss. He urged Islanders to contact elected officials requesting Mr. Waite’s release, but he’s frustrated that Mr. Waite remains in custody.

“We’ve reached out to everyone we possibly can,” he said. “We need some of our allies to step up and help us when nonsense happens.”

Ms. Zolcik is “cautiously optimistic” about Mr. Waite’s case. He has a legal path to permanent residency through his daughter and came to the United States legally, and Ms. Zolcik feels she can prove his former legal counsel’s inefficacy.

“Of the hundreds of cases I’ve seen over the past nine years doing this work, this case definitely has something to it,” she said. “But under this current administration, everything is an uphill battle.”

As the battle progresses, Ms. Waite said her family needs help shouldering the burden of Mr. Waite’s absence. Though the Waites have raised nearly $30,000 on GoFundMe since October, Ms. Waite said those funds have been eaten up by legal fees and costs associated with contacting Mr. Waite.

Ms. Waite also urged people who know her father to reach out to her to arrange communication with him.

“He needs to know that people want to hear from him and they miss him,” she said.

Ms. Waite misses her father terribly. She recalled the times Mr. Waite has shown up for her: rides to school, dance shows, basketball games, the opening of the organization she now runs in New York. It pains her that he can’t be there in the same way for her younger sister, who is in the process of applying for college.

“I really wanted my sister to have a real childhood and not have to grow up so fast,” she said.

Ms. Waite said it’s difficult to live knowing that her father is suffering. She likened the past few months to being stuck in a television show or a fantasy novel and waiting desperately for someone to cut to the next scene.

Disturbing to her, too, is that her story is not unique.

“It’s important to look at what we’ve seen happening around us and listen to the families who are affected by this,” she said.