14-year-old girl detained by federal agents is released on judge's orders

A 14-year-old girl detained by immigration agents was reunited with her aunt in Boston Thursday afternoon after a federal judge ordered her release.

The child was detained in Marlborough Tuesday before being transported through the night to a juvenile facility in New York when agents couldn't immediately locate her family — a move the judge said was outside any norm he'd seen in his years on the bench.

The girl was taken into custody after a traffic stop that led to the arrests of the two men she was driving with. Van Celedon, the office manager at a local immigration law office, was driving back from lunch when he saw the scene unfolding.

He stopped and talked to a man who said he was the girl’s brother, according to a video reviewed by WBUR. The young man tells Celedon in Portuguese that the federal agents are arresting his sister.

Then when one of several activists on the scene started questioning the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers: “Where are you taking her? Are you taking her to Burlington? Or you taking her to Marlborough PD?”

After stopping at the Marlborough Police Department, the federal agents brought the girl to the JFK Federal Building in Boston, according to court proceedings, then to a facility that houses juveniles in New York state, where she arrived after midnight Wednesday.

The agents had HSI embroidered on their tactical vests, short for Homeland Security Investigations, the branch of ICE that handles international criminal matters. The agency said this was a targeted operation against two men in the country illegally who are suspected of belonging to Primeiro Comando da Massachusetts gang.

Lauren Bis, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement that the girl was not arrested, but "rescued" from suspected gang members. Bis said special agents confirmed that the girl was not related to the men in the car, so she was placed in the custody of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement pending the identification of legal guardians. Bis said that’s “standard protocol.”

Bis also said the car that was stopped was connected to an “alleged home invasion” in Walpole earlier this month.

WBUR could not immediately confirm the allegations by DHS. And DHS did not respond to whether the men are facing charges in connection to the home invasion.

Asked for records of a home invasion, Walpole police told WBUR an investigation is underway regarding an incident that occurred last weekend, but declined to provide details.

Neither of the men involved appear to be facing criminal charges in Massachusetts, according to a WBUR review of Massachusetts court records.

DHS identified one of them as Igor Jose Cordeiro Ferreira, 28. Records shows three closed cases for Cordeiro, all motor vehicle related. No criminal records appeared for the other man, 25-year-old Lucas Da Silva Senes De Almeida.

Tuesday’s arrest drew the attention of members of Massachusetts's Congressional delegation, including Rep. Lori Trahan. She called on ICE to release the girl.

"I'm a mom of two young girls. My oldest is about to turn 16, my youngest 12. And I'm furious as I think any parent would be — because this is not immigration enforcement,” Trahan said.

On Wednesday, lawyers for the 14-year-old girl filed a habeas corpus petition in federal court in Boston, and at 3 p.m., they were before Judge Leo Sorokin. He said that in his two-decade career as a federal judge, he’s never seen federal agents detain a minor only because they couldn’t locate a relative.

He asked why the girl wasn’t placed into the custody of the Massachusetts child welfare agency.

Government lawyer Rayford Farquhar didn’t have an answer for that. He said the federal agents were concerned for the girl’s wellbeing — considering it was a school day and she was not in class.

Andrew Lattarulo, a lawyer for the girl, told the judge the girl’s mother is dead — and with her father out of the picture, she’s been living with two older brothers while going to school in Boston. Lattarulo added that he was unsuccessful attempting to contact the girl at the juvenile facility in New York.

Lattarulo said she has an aunt in Weymouth who’s willing to establish guardianship and offer the girl a home.

The judge ordered ICE to transport the girl back to Massachusetts, which Lattarulo confirms they did on Thursday.

WBUR's Ally Jarmanning contributed reporting.