A Brazilian woman is facing deportation after she was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the ritzy Massachusetts island of Nantucket.
Lara Batista-Pereira illegally crossed the United States-Mexico border in San Diego with her father in 2023 before making the cross-country trip.
The 31-year-old was caught in an immigration sting on May 27, which was one of several launched at the popular summer destination off the coast of Cape Cod, the Nantucket Current reports.
The Minas Gerais native was driving a landscaping vehicle when federal agents in two unmarked vehicles intercepted her and placed her under arrest.
Batista-Pereira and 39 other undocumented immigrants, who were apprehended in separate stings in Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, were led handcuffed and shackled into a U.S. Coast Guard boat and then transferred to a holding facility in Burlington, Massachusetts.
She is now awaiting removal at the Karnes County Immigration Processing Center in Karnes City, Texas, according to ICE’s detainee locator system.
Batista-Pereira’s father, Girlei, told the Nantucket Current that they were just looking for a new beginning when they opted to migrate to the United States.
She held multiple jobs, including babysitting and walking dogs.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and other federal agents arrested 40 people in Nantucket (pictured above) and Martha’s Vineyard during a series of raids May 27
Among those caught was Lara Batista-Pereira, 31, who is now awaiting deportation
‘I’m worried because I don’t know if Texas is worse for her or not,’ he said.
‘She’s down and depressed. I’m also in bad shape, not sleeping well. It’s hard not to think about.’
Batista-Pereira appeared before an immigration judge in San Antonio on July 28, but was denied a request to set bail by judge Thomas Crossan, who indicated the case was out of his jurisdiction.
Crossan found that she was arrested without a warrant when she crossed the border in San Diego, detained without a warrant and then released.
Crossan referenced his ruling to United States Department of Justice Board of Immigrations Appeals’ May 15 decision which indicated that a person who is placed under arrested and held without a warrant while entering the United States and then ordered removed is not eligible to be released on bail.
An undocumented immigrant is handcuffed at a checkpoint on May 27
Federal agents, including officers with ICE, oversee a group of migrants arrested during separate raids that took place in Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard on May 27
Batista-Pereira’s friend Karina Rashkov told the newspaper that the agents were wrong to arrest her
‘She was part of the community, and very loved,’ Rashkov said.
‘And she had no criminal record. They were looking for someone else. She kept saying, ‘I’m not that person, I’m not that person.’
As part of a campaign promise to root out illegal migration at the shared, southwestern border with Mexico, the Trump ramped up efforts to arrest and deport undocumented immigrants from the first day in office of his second term.
According to data released by Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a non-profit and non partisan research group, at least 56,945 undocumented immigrants were being held by ICE as of July 27.
At least 71.1 percent of the detainees do not have criminal convictions.
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