Owen Ramsingh, a longtime Columbia resident, remains in a Texas detention center more than a month after he was detained in Chicago by Customs and Border Protection agents upon returning home from a trip to his home country, the Netherlands.
The green card holder, who immigrated to the U.S. as a child in the 1980s, is facing deportation due to a conviction for cocaine possession when he was a teenager. When asked for an explanation for Ramsingh's detention, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson sent a general e-mail to KBIA last month calling Ramsingh a "criminal alien" and saying, "a green card is a privilege, not a right."
At Ramsingh's first hearing in El Paso, Texas last week, his family said the judge indicated a willingness to halt removal proceedings if attorneys can provide more documents. They also wrote in a Facebook post that, even if the judge rules in Ramsingh's favor, the government will have 30 days to appeal.
His absence has taken an emotional toll on members of the community, who have begun organizing to spread awareness about Ramsingh's detainment.
At one of many events organized by Ramsingh's friends and family in the last month, amateur musicians and vocalists played Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World" on repeat in front of Columbia City Hall.
Ramsingh's friend and co-worker, Chad Kelley, said Ramsingh was well-connected to the city's music community because he worked security at Columbia's music venues, The Blue Note and Rose Music Hall, for many years.
"He keeps everybody safe, and it genuinely means a lot to him," Kelley said. "It's not just another job where he just comes and hangs out and collects a check."
After the demonstration in front of City Hall, Ramsingh's inner circle helped organize and promote a number of other events, including profit shares with local businesses, benefit concerts and a Halloween fundraiser.
A GoFundMe has raised nearly $23,000 toward paying legal fees.
Keeping tabs on Owen
In short phone calls and texts with Ramsingh, his family has learned about the conditions of his detainment at Ero El Paso Camp East Montana in Texas.
They say he has ten square feet to himself in a crowded room with no access to electrical outlets for his CPAP machine. Ramsingh reported to his family that he shares four bathrooms with up to 75 other people, and he is allowed outside infrequently.
"It is such a roller coaster, and his lows are really, really low," said Samantha Gage, a longtime family friend who has been heavily involved in the efforts to bring Ramsingh home. "I think him knowing how hard we're fighting on the outside is truly what's helping him fight on the inside."
But the effort to bring him home is taxing.
"Every day there's like a ray of hope and then it gets dashed, and then there's a ray of hope and it gets dashed," said Gage's stepmother, Karen Mickey. "You just have to support each other through that, take a break when you have to, cry when you have to."
University of Michigan public health professor William Lopez studies the impacts of immigration enforcement on communities. There are emotional and psychological consequences when a community member is suddenly taken away – and when the system to bring them back feels complicated, he said.
"You may be demoralized and throw up your hands," Lopez said. "But I also like to believe that communities, when angry that their members are being removed, take those lessons, understand more about the system causing them to lose — even though they're doing the quote unquote right thing to do — and strategize."
A community showing
Hundreds of people are supporting Ramsingh on a Facebook group. Many have written character witness letters, and others have volunteered to notarize them.
"I see him as my biggest rock and my biggest supporter," said Ramsingh's adopted daughter, Briauna Rodriguez. "I can say with full certainty that the whole community sees him the same way."
Not everyone advocating for Ramsingh's return knows him well, though.
Some of Kim Wuest's only interactions with Ramsingh were when she put out a Facebook call for help organizing her storage unit, and he volunteered.
"We need people like him in our community that can step up and literally within a day say, 'I'm going to set my things aside and I'm going to help other people,'" West said. "That's the kind of neighbor that you want."
Wuest said she used to be more supportive of a crackdown on immigration, but Ramsingh's detention has led her to question her beliefs.
"We're in the middle of Missouri, the Midwest. And then something like this happens," Wuest said. "How can you detain someone for something they did when they were 16, when they were a child?"
Lopez said finding a range of advocates from all sides of the immigration debate is especially important in places such as Columbia, where immigrant communities are smaller, increasingly scared of public spaces and less likely to advocate out loud.
"You don't drop people off at school. You don't go to the grocery store, you don't go to the gym, you don't go to your church," Lopez said. "Some of those might sound quaint, but it's those activities that form community and the fabric of everyday life that keep us healthy, right?"
Lopez said allyship from non-immigrant communities will also be important.
"Even if you support deportation…you (may not) support people being pulled out of their car. You don't support people being deported with no due process," Lopez said. "So on one hand, yes, you may not (personally) know someone deported, but this is about constitutional rights, which applies to all of us," he added.
Ramsingh's closest friends and family said they've witnessed alliances forming, and it's kept them going.
"Knowing that people haven't forgotten and are not giving up — every day we touch base and see how everyone's doing," Mickey said. "We're taking it day by day, call by call."
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