Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/06/08/ice-raid-marthas-vineyard-trump-arrests/
Archive: https://archive.is/xCQfU
By Arelis R. Hernández
MARTHA’S VINEYARD, Mass. — A million-dollar home excavation project has been delayed because workers were too afraid to show up at the construction site. A pool at a vacation inn was closed to guests after the maintenance crew didn’t arrive. And entire businesses on this New England island have shut down.
Life on Martha’s Vineyard and the adjacent island of Nantucket has been disrupted since officers arrested dozens of immigrants late last month, igniting fear among undocumented workers who form the backbone of the workforce here just as the busy summer season gets underway.
“The money is just going to stop flowing,” said a 33-year-old Brazilian man who owns three businesses on the Vineyard and spoke on the condition of anonymity because he has no legal status in the United States. “The U.S. is only losing in pushing us out.”
Masked immigration officers wearing bulletproof vests arrived on Coast Guard boats right after the Memorial Day weekend and detained several dozen people on both islands. Federal authorities described the arrests as part of a massive sting across Massachusetts that resulted in nearly 1,500 arrests. On the islands, about 40 people were detained, including an alleged MS-13 gang member and someone described as a “child sex offender,” according to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Boston. Most had no criminal record and were stopped on their way to work, community members said.
The arrests hit a nerve in a liberal enclave known for welcoming everyone: presidents — former president Barack Obama has an oceanfront property here — LGBTQ+ activists, racial minorities, celebrities and a large cluster of immigrants from Brazil. People checked in on friends and warned them to stay off the roads. Residents staged a protest at the ferry docks where agents were loading shackled migrants onto boats. One man followed the officers with a camera and heckled them.
“It’s bullying,” said Charlie Giordano, a longtime resident and small business owner who recorded the video. “I don’t know how many are illegal or legal, I don’t give a s---. But I do care about how they’re treated.”
The arrests have put a spotlight on the tensions brewing between the Trump administration, which is determined to ramp up arrests and deportations of unauthorized immigrants, and communities like Martha’s Vineyard that have long prided themselves on protecting immigrants. Protests erupted in Los Angeles last week after agents conducted several ICE raids at work sites. On Sunday, California National Guard troops began arriving in the city after President Donald Trump ordered their deployment.
Local leaders in the Vineyard and elsewhere believe the mass deportation campaign will hurt not only individual immigrants and their families but also the entire community.
Acting ICE director Todd Lyons said at a news conference after the arrests that if “sanctuary cities” cooperated with the agency, officers wouldn’t have to “go out to the communities and do this.” Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, meanwhile, vowed to continue staging operations in communities trying to protect undocumented people.
“There is no sanctuary for illegal aliens in this country,” he said.
‘This was a safe place’
Brazilians began arriving on Martha’s Vineyard four decades ago as hyperinflation and economic stagnation wrought havoc in their country. Many arrived on tourist or work visas planning to return home but instead found a new one.
The newcomers established businesses offering food and cleaning services that are now crucial to daily life in a resort town. Today there are few restaurant menus here that don’t offer Brazilian-inspired options like croquettes or traditional cheesy bread. The hospital posts signs in English, Portuguese and Spanish. The school system employs Portuguese-speaking translators to assist Brazilian families, whose children make up roughly half the student population.
Commercial vans and trucks parked in front of homes and construction sites are emblazoned with the names of immigrants who started their own businesses, pay taxes and have staked their future on the island of about 20,000 year-round residents.
“The American people love us because we work so hard to help the community prosper and grow,” said M.N., a local business owner and community leader originally from Brazil who has raised three children here. She spoke on the condition that her initials be used instead of her full name because she feared her family would be targeted. “This was a safe place.”
The ICE raid in late May wasn’t the first on Martha’s Vineyard. Last fall, the Biden administration arrested six people, all of whom had criminal records, authorities said.
It also wasn’t the first time the island had found itself in the center of the country’s contentious immigration debate. In 2022, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) flew dozens of Venezuelan migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in what he said was an attempt to push “sanctuary jurisdictions” like this one to confront the burden of soaring migration. Islanders welcomed many of the migrants with jobs and housing.
Residents said the recent arrests felt far more disruptive. In a news release, ICE said 790 of those detained across Massachusetts had a criminal record in the United States or abroad — nearly 55 percent. The rest included people like a high school volleyball player on his way to practice in the town of Milford.
Immigrants and lifelong residents on Martha’s Vineyard said the arrests felt arbitrary and included valued community members who had committed no crime. Overstaying a visa is a civil offense.
“People here have never seen that,” said Ricardo Duarte, a local Brazilian pastor. “ICE would come here to get criminals and that is good. But the way they did it now, that was not it.”
Shackled in life vests
Fear spread quickly on the morning of May 27 as officers wearing vests labeled “POLICE” and “ICE” began stopping work vehicles. Migrants were handcuffed, fitted with orange life vests and taken to a Coast Guard boat.
When Giordano heard what was happening, he grew alarmed and angry. He jumped into his pickup truck and began filming. In a video that has since gone viral, Giordano captured himself confronting several officers wearing neck gaiters pulled over their faces. They called police to intervene.
“They’re concerned you may be impeding with their job,” the officer who responded to the scene told him.
“We’ve got to do what we’ve got to do,” Giordano responded. “You, them and me.”
One of the masked officers noted Giordano was shaking. “I’m f---ing enraged at your f---ing mask-wearing ass,” Giordano replied. He said he was not an activist nor an expert on immigration law, but that picking people up off the street and not giving information to their families felt wrong.
“This is supposed to be a democratic republic,” he said later in an interview. “Once you throw away one group of people’s rights like due process, the system for everyone degrades to oblivion and you get totalitarianism.”
Giordano shows one of the many supportive messages he received after the video of him confronting masked agents in tactical gear went viral.
After the raid, many immigrants panicked and shuttered themselves indoors. Many spoke to The Washington Post only on the condition of anonymity because they fear being targeted the next time ICE arrives on the island. They recounted taking extraordinary measures that day and in the week after to protect themselves.
One woman said she felt her blood pressure spiking but was too afraid to go to the hospital. A mother of baby twins begged for help buying milk because she said she was too frightened to go to the grocery store.
The Brazilian man with three businesses on the Vineyard said he shut down his companies for a week, resulting in tens of thousands of dollars in losses. This is not what life in America was supposed to be, he said. He questioned why the U.S. government doesn’t value the $100,000 he pays annually in taxes nor the jobs his businesses have created.
“I don’t know how the U.S. survives without us,” he said.
Soccer fields behind Oak Bluffs Elementary School are empty on Martha’s Vineyard. Local residents say members of the Brazilian diaspora often play pickup games on weekends.
‘America needs us’
Since the arrests, the fallout has rippled through the community. A celebration of Brazilian culture was postponed after local leaders realized people were still too nervous to attend a large gathering. Several high school seniors from Brazilian families missed their final exams. Some families are now making plans to return to Brazil.
Business owners on the island said it is too early to calculate how the ICE raid has affected the community economically, but that money has already been lost. Workers with legal status are having to take on more hours to fill gaps. Foremen with papers are shuttling colleagues who are undocumented. People are worried about fulfilling contract timelines.
“People are losing thousands of dollars,” said Andrew Morris, owner of Driftwood Tree & Land Services. Many of his workers didn’t show up for four days after the ICE operation. “Now we’re behind, and it’s slowing everything up.”
Laura Weisman, a Brazilian immigrant who works as a translator for the schools, said the community is resilient but she worries about people’s mental health.
Teacher Jonah Kaplan-Woolner talks about the impact the recent immigration raid has had on his students.
High school English-language teacher Jonah Kaplan-Woolner shares her concerns. He said it’s easy to judge immigrants without legal status before learning the stories that brought them to the United States. His students “dodged bullets in the desert” and “crossed continents” to reach the Vineyard. He called ICE’s brand of immigration enforcement a kind of “state-sponsored psychological torture.”
Several Vineyard residents said Joe Biden could have better handled the massive influx of migrants who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border during his presidency. While wanting to welcome newcomers, they also feared that too many people had been allowed in and worried that criminals were among them. But they said Trump’s correction has been disproportionate. Even some Trump supporters said the operation feels like a betrayal.
“Trump lied,” said Alex Bartolotto, a naturalized U.S. citizen who said he voted for Trump. He said he thought the president would focus on getting rid of criminals, not his law-abiding Brazilian compatriots.
He said ICE arrested two people he knows personally and neither have a criminal past. They both signed deportation documents to go home, he said.
Many immigrants said they have no choice but to reconsider their futures on the island. M.N., the Brazilian community leader, said she has not slept well since the ICE arrests. Her phone has been flooded with requests from people too afraid to leave their homes for help with essentials like food.
She struggles to wrap her mind around the idea that Brazilians who have worked to keep Martha’s Vineyard running are being branded criminals.
“We are not destroying America,” she said. “America needs us.”
TL;DR entitled fucking Brazilians asshurt they won't be able to remit cash back home.
As a personal aside, I was at my local pool a while back and this older (very fat) Brazilian man was bragging about his construction business in the USA and how much money he was sending back to Brazil. He was living in a studio apartment here and building multiple buildings in Brazil.... Fucking leech.
Also, LMAO at that turbo faggot crying about MUH illegals getting shackled. Fucking prick won't pay a citizen a real wage but will suck off some illegal alien.
Archive: https://archive.is/xCQfU
By Arelis R. Hernández
MARTHA’S VINEYARD, Mass. — A million-dollar home excavation project has been delayed because workers were too afraid to show up at the construction site. A pool at a vacation inn was closed to guests after the maintenance crew didn’t arrive. And entire businesses on this New England island have shut down.
Life on Martha’s Vineyard and the adjacent island of Nantucket has been disrupted since officers arrested dozens of immigrants late last month, igniting fear among undocumented workers who form the backbone of the workforce here just as the busy summer season gets underway.
“The money is just going to stop flowing,” said a 33-year-old Brazilian man who owns three businesses on the Vineyard and spoke on the condition of anonymity because he has no legal status in the United States. “The U.S. is only losing in pushing us out.”
Masked immigration officers wearing bulletproof vests arrived on Coast Guard boats right after the Memorial Day weekend and detained several dozen people on both islands. Federal authorities described the arrests as part of a massive sting across Massachusetts that resulted in nearly 1,500 arrests. On the islands, about 40 people were detained, including an alleged MS-13 gang member and someone described as a “child sex offender,” according to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Boston. Most had no criminal record and were stopped on their way to work, community members said.
The arrests hit a nerve in a liberal enclave known for welcoming everyone: presidents — former president Barack Obama has an oceanfront property here — LGBTQ+ activists, racial minorities, celebrities and a large cluster of immigrants from Brazil. People checked in on friends and warned them to stay off the roads. Residents staged a protest at the ferry docks where agents were loading shackled migrants onto boats. One man followed the officers with a camera and heckled them.
“It’s bullying,” said Charlie Giordano, a longtime resident and small business owner who recorded the video. “I don’t know how many are illegal or legal, I don’t give a s---. But I do care about how they’re treated.”
The arrests have put a spotlight on the tensions brewing between the Trump administration, which is determined to ramp up arrests and deportations of unauthorized immigrants, and communities like Martha’s Vineyard that have long prided themselves on protecting immigrants. Protests erupted in Los Angeles last week after agents conducted several ICE raids at work sites. On Sunday, California National Guard troops began arriving in the city after President Donald Trump ordered their deployment.
Local leaders in the Vineyard and elsewhere believe the mass deportation campaign will hurt not only individual immigrants and their families but also the entire community.
Acting ICE director Todd Lyons said at a news conference after the arrests that if “sanctuary cities” cooperated with the agency, officers wouldn’t have to “go out to the communities and do this.” Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, meanwhile, vowed to continue staging operations in communities trying to protect undocumented people.
“There is no sanctuary for illegal aliens in this country,” he said.
‘This was a safe place’
Brazilians began arriving on Martha’s Vineyard four decades ago as hyperinflation and economic stagnation wrought havoc in their country. Many arrived on tourist or work visas planning to return home but instead found a new one.
The newcomers established businesses offering food and cleaning services that are now crucial to daily life in a resort town. Today there are few restaurant menus here that don’t offer Brazilian-inspired options like croquettes or traditional cheesy bread. The hospital posts signs in English, Portuguese and Spanish. The school system employs Portuguese-speaking translators to assist Brazilian families, whose children make up roughly half the student population.
Commercial vans and trucks parked in front of homes and construction sites are emblazoned with the names of immigrants who started their own businesses, pay taxes and have staked their future on the island of about 20,000 year-round residents.
“The American people love us because we work so hard to help the community prosper and grow,” said M.N., a local business owner and community leader originally from Brazil who has raised three children here. She spoke on the condition that her initials be used instead of her full name because she feared her family would be targeted. “This was a safe place.”
The ICE raid in late May wasn’t the first on Martha’s Vineyard. Last fall, the Biden administration arrested six people, all of whom had criminal records, authorities said.
It also wasn’t the first time the island had found itself in the center of the country’s contentious immigration debate. In 2022, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) flew dozens of Venezuelan migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in what he said was an attempt to push “sanctuary jurisdictions” like this one to confront the burden of soaring migration. Islanders welcomed many of the migrants with jobs and housing.
Residents said the recent arrests felt far more disruptive. In a news release, ICE said 790 of those detained across Massachusetts had a criminal record in the United States or abroad — nearly 55 percent. The rest included people like a high school volleyball player on his way to practice in the town of Milford.
Immigrants and lifelong residents on Martha’s Vineyard said the arrests felt arbitrary and included valued community members who had committed no crime. Overstaying a visa is a civil offense.
“People here have never seen that,” said Ricardo Duarte, a local Brazilian pastor. “ICE would come here to get criminals and that is good. But the way they did it now, that was not it.”
Shackled in life vests
Fear spread quickly on the morning of May 27 as officers wearing vests labeled “POLICE” and “ICE” began stopping work vehicles. Migrants were handcuffed, fitted with orange life vests and taken to a Coast Guard boat.
When Giordano heard what was happening, he grew alarmed and angry. He jumped into his pickup truck and began filming. In a video that has since gone viral, Giordano captured himself confronting several officers wearing neck gaiters pulled over their faces. They called police to intervene.
“They’re concerned you may be impeding with their job,” the officer who responded to the scene told him.
“We’ve got to do what we’ve got to do,” Giordano responded. “You, them and me.”
One of the masked officers noted Giordano was shaking. “I’m f---ing enraged at your f---ing mask-wearing ass,” Giordano replied. He said he was not an activist nor an expert on immigration law, but that picking people up off the street and not giving information to their families felt wrong.
“This is supposed to be a democratic republic,” he said later in an interview. “Once you throw away one group of people’s rights like due process, the system for everyone degrades to oblivion and you get totalitarianism.”
Giordano shows one of the many supportive messages he received after the video of him confronting masked agents in tactical gear went viral.
After the raid, many immigrants panicked and shuttered themselves indoors. Many spoke to The Washington Post only on the condition of anonymity because they fear being targeted the next time ICE arrives on the island. They recounted taking extraordinary measures that day and in the week after to protect themselves.
One woman said she felt her blood pressure spiking but was too afraid to go to the hospital. A mother of baby twins begged for help buying milk because she said she was too frightened to go to the grocery store.
The Brazilian man with three businesses on the Vineyard said he shut down his companies for a week, resulting in tens of thousands of dollars in losses. This is not what life in America was supposed to be, he said. He questioned why the U.S. government doesn’t value the $100,000 he pays annually in taxes nor the jobs his businesses have created.
“I don’t know how the U.S. survives without us,” he said.
Soccer fields behind Oak Bluffs Elementary School are empty on Martha’s Vineyard. Local residents say members of the Brazilian diaspora often play pickup games on weekends.
‘America needs us’
Since the arrests, the fallout has rippled through the community. A celebration of Brazilian culture was postponed after local leaders realized people were still too nervous to attend a large gathering. Several high school seniors from Brazilian families missed their final exams. Some families are now making plans to return to Brazil.
Business owners on the island said it is too early to calculate how the ICE raid has affected the community economically, but that money has already been lost. Workers with legal status are having to take on more hours to fill gaps. Foremen with papers are shuttling colleagues who are undocumented. People are worried about fulfilling contract timelines.
“People are losing thousands of dollars,” said Andrew Morris, owner of Driftwood Tree & Land Services. Many of his workers didn’t show up for four days after the ICE operation. “Now we’re behind, and it’s slowing everything up.”
Laura Weisman, a Brazilian immigrant who works as a translator for the schools, said the community is resilient but she worries about people’s mental health.
Teacher Jonah Kaplan-Woolner talks about the impact the recent immigration raid has had on his students.
High school English-language teacher Jonah Kaplan-Woolner shares her concerns. He said it’s easy to judge immigrants without legal status before learning the stories that brought them to the United States. His students “dodged bullets in the desert” and “crossed continents” to reach the Vineyard. He called ICE’s brand of immigration enforcement a kind of “state-sponsored psychological torture.”
Several Vineyard residents said Joe Biden could have better handled the massive influx of migrants who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border during his presidency. While wanting to welcome newcomers, they also feared that too many people had been allowed in and worried that criminals were among them. But they said Trump’s correction has been disproportionate. Even some Trump supporters said the operation feels like a betrayal.
“Trump lied,” said Alex Bartolotto, a naturalized U.S. citizen who said he voted for Trump. He said he thought the president would focus on getting rid of criminals, not his law-abiding Brazilian compatriots.
He said ICE arrested two people he knows personally and neither have a criminal past. They both signed deportation documents to go home, he said.
Many immigrants said they have no choice but to reconsider their futures on the island. M.N., the Brazilian community leader, said she has not slept well since the ICE arrests. Her phone has been flooded with requests from people too afraid to leave their homes for help with essentials like food.
She struggles to wrap her mind around the idea that Brazilians who have worked to keep Martha’s Vineyard running are being branded criminals.
“We are not destroying America,” she said. “America needs us.”
TL;DR entitled fucking Brazilians asshurt they won't be able to remit cash back home.
As a personal aside, I was at my local pool a while back and this older (very fat) Brazilian man was bragging about his construction business in the USA and how much money he was sending back to Brazil. He was living in a studio apartment here and building multiple buildings in Brazil.... Fucking leech.
Also, LMAO at that turbo faggot crying about MUH illegals getting shackled. Fucking prick won't pay a citizen a real wage but will suck off some illegal alien.
