A 14-year-old was detained by Homeland Security Investigation agents in Marlborough Tuesday and transferred to a juvenile detention facility in New York.
Judge Leo Sorokin in a hearing Wednesday ordered her to be returned to Massachusetts and released to her aunt’s custody. He repeatedly questioned why she had been moved out of state, or even detained, in the first place.
The attorney representing the federal government said she was not detained by immigration agents to be deported.
“This is not a situation — as is my understanding — that the government is holding onto this individual with any intent to remove her from the country,” attorney Rayford Farquhar said in court Wednesday.
Some of Massachusetts’ top lawmakers, and the girl’s attorney claimed the girl had been detained as “bait” in order to detain another family member. Top immigration officials, meanwhile, claimed they were rescuing her from suspected gang members.
The minor, identified as B.E.S., is a Brighton High School student who was living with two older U.S. citizen brothers in Marlborough. She was detained by Homeland Security Investigations and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in a parking lot with two other individuals, according to court filings.
The teenager is originally from Brazil and came to the United States on a visitor visa in 2019. She is currently seeking a special immigrant juvenile visa, her lawyer said in court Wednesday. She has no criminal history and has never been charged with any criminal offense.
“It’s extremely unusual for a 14-year-old child to essentially be abducted by federal agents with zero explanation and then taken in the middle of the night to New York. I think the question remains: Why?” her attorney Andrew Lattarulo said. “And we might never know why.”
After federal agents arrested her Tuesday, she was transported to the Marlborough Police Department, where police tried to contact her father, who didn’t respond. She was then brought to the John F. Kennedy Federal Building in Boston — which houses several federal offices, including Boston Immigration Court and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services — then she was transferred overnight to a juvenile facility under the purview of the Office of Refugee Resettlement in New York. Her mother is deceased, and her father is not a part of her life, according to Lattarulo.
Farquhar, the attorney for the government, initially claimed in court that local authorities called federal agents — and the detention was ultimately made — because the child didn’t have a guardian with her.
“There was concern as to who she was, why she was with these people … and the fact that she wasn’t where she should have been at that time of the day — and that’s the reason why she was taken into custody,” Farquhar said.
Sorokin pressed him further.
“She obviously wasn’t arrested by federal agents because she wasn’t in school. I assume she’s arrested because in the view of federal agents, her visitor’s visa had expired,” said the judge.
Farquhar said the case was “an anomaly,” adding that the other two people in the car were in the country without legal status and B.E.S. was detained because she “wasn’t with a caregiver,” he said.
Late Wednesday afternoon, DHS Deputy Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said the two people in the car with the 14-year-old were two men in their 20s who have criminal records — men B.E.S. did not identify as her guardians.
“ICE did NOT arrest a 14-year-old girl—our officers [RESCUED] her from suspected gang members,” Bis wrote. “Based on this information and to ensure the safety and security of the minor, she was placed in the custody of Health and Human Services, Office of Refugee Resettlement within hours of the initial encounter.”
Sorokin repeatedly questioned why she had been moved out of state.
“She — through the middle of the night — was driven seven hours away to New York,” the judge said. “It sounds like it makes it a lot more complicated. If the government doesn’t want to hold onto her, just to let her go.”
Sorokin ordered that the teenager be back in Massachusetts Thursday afternoon. Lattarulo must work with the child’s aunt to file an affidavit in which she says that she’s seeking temporary guardianship of the girl, is a U.S. citizen and that B.E.S. can reside with her and her green card–holding uncle.
Lattarulo said her detention violated the U.S. Constitution, including the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and the Flores Settlement Agreement, a key federal law governing the detention and release of minors by federal immigration agents.
U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan alerted media to the situation on Wednesday and claimed the child was used “as bait” to detain her father. The Department of Homeland Security didn’t return request for comment about that allegation.
“I join parents everywhere who are hearing about this story in just being absolutely furious that this could happen in Massachusetts and in Marlborough because this isn’t immigration enforcement — this is targeting a child, to inflict maximum pain on a family and frankly to use her as bait for other family members,” she said.
Trahan celebrated Sorokin’s decision later Wednesday.
“This is the right outcome, and it could not have come soon enough,” she wrote in a statement. “To be absolutely clear, a 14-year-old girl should never have been detained in the first place.
“We were fortunate that this case moved quickly, but the next family may not be so lucky,” the Congresswoman added. “We simply cannot allow this to become the new normal.”
Rep. Ayanna Pressley said there’s an established record of ICE “targeting and kidnapping children” — citing the case of a 13-year-old in Everett and a 5-year-old in Minnesota.
“In no world is it acceptable, lawful, or humane to abduct a 14-year-old girl,” Pressley said. “DHS agents took B.E.S.—my constituent and a Brighton High School student—to the local police department, then brought her to the JFK Federal Building with no explanation. She was held for hours in these places alone, scared, without adequate access to a phone or even a proper meal.”
Pressley said her office is following up with the Department of Homeland Security to investigation the situation.
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