A 13-year-old boy in Massachusetts was detained by local police on Thursday. When his mother arrived to pick him up, she learned that her son had instead been taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody and later transferred to a juvenile facility in Virginia, more than 500 miles away. A federal judge has ordered the boy’s release unless the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) provides grounds for his continued detention.
The boy, whose family is originally from Brazil, was initially arrested by Everett Police Department officers on Thursday evening, according to The Boston Globe. After waiting for an hour and a half to take her son home, Josiele Berto was told her son had instead been transferred into ICE custody, even though the boy and his family have a pending asylum case and are authorized to work legally in the United States, per the Globe.
Andrew Lattarulo, the boy’s immigration attorney who filed a federal habeas corpus petition on the boy’s behalf on Friday, told the Globe he had “never done a bond or a habeas for a kid this young, ever.” United States District Judge Richard G. Stearns ruled the same day that the government must justify the boy’s arrest by the end of Tuesday, or provide a bond hearing no later than Thursday.
Although juvenile records are generally closed to the public for privacy concerns, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin claimed in an X post that the 13-year-old “posed a public safety threat with an extensive rap sheet including violent assault with a dangerous weapon, battery, breaking and entering, destruction of property,” and that “he was in possession of a firearm and 5-7 inch knife when arrested.”
Of course, such allegations are difficult to confirm given the boy’s age and lack important details like whether the “rap sheet” includes arrests, charges, convictions, or dismissals. Lattarulo said that the family still doesn’t know “what led to the encounter with the police or how ICE got involved,” according to the Globe. Whatever the case, now that the 13-year-old is being held in a detention facility outside of his home state, he will have to find an immigration lawyer who practices in Virginia and will face challenges defending himself against any criminal allegations.
“I believe the child’s constitutional rights are being violated,” Lattarulo told the Globe. “He should have remained in Massachusetts, where he could address any and all allegations within the jurisdiction of his home state, not in a facility hundreds of miles away.”
Berto told the Globe that her son had called her from the Virginia facility, crying. The boy, who recently broke his foot while riding a bike, told his mother that he is sleeping on concrete with an aluminum blanket and has had little to eat. She fears ICE will continue to move her son around the country—potentially to states such as Texas and Louisiana with low asylum and bond approval rates—without telling her. Berto has turned to creating an online fundraiser to help get her son back.
“It doesn’t make any sense for one of my clients, waiting almost two hours for her kid, and only to find out later that ICE agents took him,” Lattarulo told the Globe. “They told her she could pick him up, and then they wouldn’t let her see her kid.”
Amid President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, DHS and ICE have held record-high numbers of immigrant detainees. As of July, more than 600 juveniles were held in ICE custody, leading to an influx of litigation over the extended detention and conditions in which juveniles are being held, and due process violations.
While it remains unclear what will happen to Berto’s 13-year-old son, it is unfortunately clear that the Trump administration seems unbothered by the many rights violations, including those against children, that continue to emerge while attempting mass deportations.
