Dorrance Street builds the target of the Providence FBI raid Thursday

On By Littum

game

PROVIDENCE – FBI agents raided a building on Dorrance Street in downtown Providence Thursday morning.

“There is court-authorized activity at that location,” said Jim Martin, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Zachary A. Cunha’s office. He declined to elaborate.

The building 127 Dorrance St. houses the offices of Joseph Molina Flynn, an immigration attorney in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, serving as a municipal court judge in Central Falls. Molina Flynn’s office is the focus of the search, according to multiple sources.

Molina Flynn was the first openly gay person and the first previously undocumented person to serve on the bench in Central Falls, according to the city.

An FBI spokeswoman confirmed only that the agency is “conducting court-authorized activity at that address.”

Molina Flynn resigns

Shortly after news of the FBI’s actions broke, Central Falls Mayor Maria Rivera Molina announced Flynn’s resignation.

“I was deeply concerned to see the reports of an FBI search of Joseph Molina Flynn’s law office,” Rivera said in a statement. “As the Central Falls community knows, transparency and accountability are my priorities. In an effort to maintain the integrity and focus of the District Court, Judge Molina Flynn has officially resigned from her position.”

District Court Associate Judge Robert McConnell will fill on an interim basis until Molina Flynn’s position is filled.

Molina Flynn’s background from undocumented to law student

The Journal reported at his appointment in 2021 that Molina Flynn came to the United States from Colombia when he was 9 years old, following the arrival of family members. Before eventually settling in Pawtucket, where he grew up, Molina Flynn first arrived in Central Falls. He was on a visitor visa which he overstayed and became undocumented.

He recalled being excited to arrive in the United States and feeling an “overwhelming sense of peace” after leaving a homeland plagued by violence.

He also faced challenges in the United States. He vividly remembers his first day of school in Central Falls. Molina Flynn was in a predominantly white classroom and spoke no English. He was able to say “hello” to the teacher, but when she asked him something else, he wasn’t able to answer much more than, “What?”

The children burst out laughing, he said.

“I became determined that they wouldn’t laugh again and I was going to learn to speak English,” Molina Flynn told The Journal.

Molina Flynn’s biography of Roger Williams University School of Law website, where he is identified as an adjunct professor, says he graduated summa cum laude from Johnson & Wales University with a BS in accounting and earned his Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan Law School.

He founded Molina Flynn Law Offices in 2015 as a solo practitioner and focuses on immigration, family and criminal matters. It says he focused his practice on the intersection of these areas and works with other practitioners as a “crime migration” consultant.

This story has been updated to include new information.