On a dark and cold Saturday evening, dozens of people huddled together around Zapata at a vigil held for his wife, Juliana Milena Zapata, who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Thursday after Zapata lost consciousness. Silhouetted by passing headlights, the crowd held up candles, phone flashlights, and handmade placards reading “Protect Our Neighbors” and “Hate Will Not Make Us Safe.”
Zapata said he was driving his wife and their 1-and-a-half-year-old daughter on Kimball Street Thursday morning when ICE agents surrounded the car and began banging on their windows. He and his wife clung to each other and their daughter as the agents reached into the car, he said, and he fell unconscious after an agent banger around his ribs and pressed on his neck.
Several bystanders were at the scene and filmed the incident, which went viral on social media. In one video, Zapata can be seen shaking while holding his daughter. ICE agents appear to struggle with the two parents as one bystander yells, “He’s having a seizure!”
“They’re trying to rip the baby out of her hand,” one person says.
After regaining consciousness, Zapata was hospitalized and his wife was taken into ICE custody. He was discharged early Friday morning.
On Saturday, he struggled to express his fears to the crowd of supporters.
“My life has become a nightmare,” he said in Spanish. “It’s hard for the situation to sink in. Remembering what happened, honestly, it hurts.”
Immigration officials said they were targeting Zapata’s wife, who had been charged with stabbing a co-worker in the hand and throwing a trash can at her. They also claimed that Zapata had faked his seizure.
Zapata has denied faking the medical episode and said his wife’s case has been blown out of proportion.
“There are lots of bad rumors out there about me, my wife, my family,” he said on Saturday. “We’re human beings and we make mistakes. But we’ve never been bad people.”
Zapata and his wife are both from Ecuador and have been together for seven years. After crossing the border, they turned themselves in to immigration authorities, and they currently have pending asylum cases and valid work authorization. Their daughter, Alaia, was born in the United States.
Dolores Thibault-Muñoz, an attorney and former Fitchburg city councilor, said at the rally on Saturday that the arrest was a flagrant violation of due process, which she described as “fundamental to a free society.”
“[Due process] ensures that laws are applied fairly and that everyone’s rights are respected, no matter who you are, who they are,” she said. “On Kimball Street, we were all deprived of those rights.”
Other public figures who spoke at the vigil included City Councilor Sally Craginand State Representative Michael Kushmerek, who described Thursday’s altercation as “the most traumatic thing that could have happened to any of us.”
“To see your child pried from their mother’s arms … that’s not justice, that is not immigration enforcement, that is not America,” Kushmerek said. “It was inhumane, it was cruel, and it was terrible.”
Advocates have criticized the role played by Fitchburg police, who in the video appear to be separating the crowd from the immigration agents. Police said in a statement that, while they do not enforce federal immigration law, “nor do we interfere with the lawful actions of other law enforcement agencies.” Fitchburg mayor Sam Squailia said the police department would analysis its conduct “to ensure policies and best practices were followed.”
Myles Phillips-Wilcox, the mayor’s deputy chief of staff, said at the vigil that police had been faced with a difficult choice: interfere with federal authority, or “witness people being treated like chattel.”
“That’s not what I thought my country was, and it hurts,” he said.
He described the ICE agents as “cowardly, militarized frat boys” who were “thirsty for action [and] aggression.” But rather than succumb to hatred, he urged the crowd to use their outrage towards mobilizing in a meaningful way.
“Embracing hate … makes the cycle of pain and vengeance more likely to continue,” Phillips-Wilcox said. “I won’t forget what I feel. … I remember what I saw, but I will forget my hate, because we have work to do.”
Zapata expressed his appreciation for the crowd’s support on Saturday: “Thank you, thank you,” he said in English, to cheers.
“All of you here are testament to who we are here in Fitchburg,” said organizer Irene Hernandez. “This is our town, this is our community. We continue to organize with one another, and to be fearless and courageous, because that’s who we are, and that’s what we’ve always been.”
Milena Zapata is currently being held at the Cumberland County Jail in Maine. Zapata said he has spoken with her, and that she is aware and grateful for the support.
But his young daughter is missing her mother, he added.
“She asks for her mother, every time she hears me on the phone with her,” he said. “She misses her, she goes everywhere in the house looking for her. She can’t speak, really, but she’ll go ‘mama, mama.’ So I have to keep her mind off of it.”
Material from previous Globe stories was used in this report.
Camilo Fonseca can be reached at camilo.fonseca@globe.com. Follow him on X @fonseca_esq and on Instagram @camilo_fonseca.reports.
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