Mass. man detained by ICE is fighting to get out of a Texas holding facility

Lucas Dos Santos Amaral says a guard came to his cell at the Plymouth County jail early on the morning of Feb. 3 and told him to pack up his things. The 29-year-old thought he was being released from immigration custody, but instead he was put on a bus.

Amaral said he wasn't told where he was headed, or given a chance to contact his lawyer or family before he eventually was ushered onto a plane.

“He found out he was going to Texas when he was inside the plane. Because the pilot said it,” his wife, Suyanne Boechat Amaral, told WBUR.

Last week, Boechat Amaral sat in a small law office in Marlborough, waiting to hear whether U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would release her husband. He’s being held at the South Texas Detention Facility, a privately operated barracks in Pearsall, near San Antonio. It’s the second Texas site he’s been transferred to since he was first arrested, according to ICE online records.

Dos Santos Amaral was driving to work on the morning of Jan. 27 when, he told his wife and his lawyer, three ICE agents flashed their police lights on Main Street in Marlborough.

One of the agents “stopped me and told me that he was looking for someone who looked a lot like me,” Dos Santos Amaral said in Portuguese during a phone call with two WBUR reporters.

He wasn’t the person ICE was looking for. He works as a painter and, records show, had just one prior interaction with law enforcement, a dismissed charge of driving without a license in 2021.

But that didn’t matter when ICE stopped him last month. Dos Santos Amaral’s legal status here had expired; he came to the U.S. on a tourist visa seven years ago. He was handcuffed and sent to the jail in Plymouth County, which contracts with ICE.

Federal immigration authorities did not provide answers to WBUR’s questions regarding Dos Santos Amaral’s arrest and transfer.

His is an example of a “collateral arrest,” where agents scoop up a person while looking for someone else — usually someone with a criminal record. Massachusetts law prohibits law enforcement from holding people for ICE based solely on civil immigration detainers. But local police can — and do — coordinate with the agency when it comes to criminal offenses or public safety threats.

But U.S. Border Czar Tom Homan has said more immigrants will be detained in collateral arrests, when agents are pursuing what he calls the “bad guy” or “the criminal alien.”

“When we find him, he's going to be with others, most likely,” Homan told ABC news in January. “Many times they're with others. And if they're in the country illegally, they're coming too.”

In the past, such detainees, if they posed no risk to the community, were often released on a bond by immigration judges, according to immigration lawyers interviewed by WBUR. But the Trump administration is putting pressure on ICE to deport more people. It's set a 75-per-day arrest quota for its field offices.

Dos Santos Amaral was supposed to attend a bond hearing last week in Chelmsford, but instead the judge heard ICE's petition to transfer his case to a Texas court. Dos Santos Amaral attended by video from Texas, while his attorney, Eloa Celedon, attended from her office in Marlborough.

Celedon planned to argue for his release, but she would first have to convince the judge not to transfer the case. The week before, she said in an interview that she was worried a Texas judge would be less likely to release him.

Boechat Amaral waited anxiously outside Celedon's office during the hearing. (Celedon did not permit observers to watch the video hearing; she said she didn't want any distractions.) She’s fighting to get her husband home, trying to make ends meet, and caring for their 3-year-old daughter — while also pregnant.

She said their daughter has been asking about her dad. One day, the questions left her stunned: “ ‘Why is my dad in jail? Why is my dad locked up?’ and you don’t know what to answer, because how in the world are you going to explain that to a 3-year-old?” she said.

A half hour later, Celedon came out of her office with the news. The judge had sided with the government, and the case would be heard in Texas. Celedon had no chance to argue for her client’s release.

Boechat Amaral was silent as Celedon pointed out the positives — for instance, the Massachusetts judge appeared to go out of his way to expedite the next hearing.

“OK, so no full bad news. OK?" Celedon said. "Don't get too sad. I know you're sad."

“I am,” Boechat Amaral replied.

“I know, me too,” her lawyer said. “I just, you know — it's tough.”

Celedon said she's seeing more of these collateral arrests, and transfers and deportation proceedings seem to be ramping up under the Trump administration. There have been reports that more than 100 immigrants detained in New England were transferred to a complex in New Mexico this month.

Had they not transferred Dos Santos Amaral, Celedon said, “we would've had the bond motion today. I feel like the transfer was too quick, abrupt.”

Her phone rang mid-conversation; it was Dos Santos Amaral. She spoke to him first then passed the phone to WBUR reporters.

Dos Santos Amaral complained about the facility’s beds, food and lack of privacy. It’s a space run by a private company, Geo Group Inc., that has contracts with ICE to house detainees.

He said he misses his wife and daughter, and sees people get deported every day, but he hasn’t lost hope.

“I don't believe that it will get to that point of having to return to Brazil,” he said in Portuguese. “I have a lot of trust in God, first of all, and I have a lot of trust in Eloa [Celedon], who is doing an excellent job here.”

Dos Santos Amaral’s next immigration hearing, to argue for his release on bond, is scheduled for this week.