Speakers called for probe into actions by ICE, DHS, and local law enforcement in Boston and Suffolk County…
More than 100 people stood in frigid weather at Boston’s City Hall Plaza Wednesday evening to mourn the death of Emmanuel Damas, the 56-year-old Haitian man who died in an Arizona ICE detention center on March 2.
“America, we can do better than that,” Damas’ brother, Presner Nelson said. “We are better than that, and we expect better than that from our government.”
Other vigil speakers called on state and federal politicians to launch an independent criminal investigation into the actions of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that they say resulted in Damas’ death.
What his family says started as a toothache turned tragic when Damas was allegedly unable to access proper and timely health care at the Florence Detention Center in Arizona. The federal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE officials have publicly refuted that allegation and have said Damas was taken to three different medical centers for treatment.
Damas arrived legally in Dorchester in 2024 from Haiti and died after being taken to a facility in Phoenix for a cardiothoracic workup. The Laken Riley Act required he be held pending his asylum appeal. His original asylum claim was denied in 2025, filed after he was taken into custody by ICE in Boston last September.
The medical liaison for ICE notified Damas’ family that they were permitted to visit him eight days after he was intubated on a ventilator in the intensive care unit at the John C. Lincoln Medical Center, according to an ICE statement.
“We should not have to use your pain to call shame to a system that is every day abusing our neighbors — our immigrant brothers and sisters,” said City Councillor Ruthzee Louijeune, a daughter of Haitian immigrants. “I am so angry.”
Immigrant advocates asked Mayor Michelle Wu and Gov. Maura Healey to initiate an independent review of Boston and Suffolk County law enforcement, who arrested Damas and who submitted his fingerprints at the Nashua Street Jail into a federal database.
Local representatives of LUCE believe the fingerprinting is probably what alerted ICE.
Hannah Hafter, a member of the Dorchester hub for LUCE, said Damas’s family is financially responsible for a full autopsy and for the transport of Damas’ body back to Haiti.
“His mother says she can’t stand the idea of him being buried in the country that rejected him and killed him,” Hafter said. The family has a GoFundMe page.
Brian Concannon, the founder and executive director of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, urged members of Congress to end the attempt to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for immigrants through Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley’s discharge petition that would extend TPS.
Speakers at the vigil further demanded that Healey shut down the Boston Regional Intelligence Center, known as BRIC, an organization formed after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that allows data sharing between state and federal officers.
Latoya Gayle, a candidate for state Senate who volunteers with LUCE Network Massachusetts, said she is outraged by Damas’ treatment in ICE custody.
“He didn’t deserve what happened to him,” Gayle said in an interview. “His family doesn’t deserve this. We don’t need another family to have to deal with that.”
Organizers also called for a divestment from CoreCivic, the private for-profit prison company that held Damas in the Arizona detention center. Vigil organizers said Citizens Bank finances CoreCivic and The GEO Group, two of the largest private operators of immigrant detention centers.
So far this year 12 people – including Damas – have died in ICE custody, according to the agency’s own records. An additional 31 died in ICE custody in 2025.
This story is part of a partnership between the Dorchester Reporter and the Boston University Department of Journalism.
