ICE arrests five charged with violent crimes on Nantucket

The arrests have become national news during a heated presidential election cycle with immigration at the center of the political conversation.

Nantucket HarborDavid L. Ryan/Globe Staff

In an operation that spanned several days on Nantucket, Immigration and Customs Enforcement says the agency arrested five immigrants charged with violent crimes. The arrests have become a political flashpoint during a presidential election season where immigration remains at the center of public rhetoric.

Among those arrested, according to immigration authorities: A Salvadoran national charged with child rape; multiple men charged with sex crimes against Massachusetts residents, including a child; and a Salvadoran gang member charged with assault and battery.

The arrests, which took place from Sept. 10 to Sept. 12, also involved nationals of Brazil and Guatemala, the agency has said in public statements. ICE spokesperson James Covington told the Globe via email that the agency had concluded its operation on Nantucket and ICE made no other arrests.

All of those apprehended were present in the country without authorization at the time of their arrests, according to ICE statements.

Bryan Daniel Aldana-Arevalo, 28, was arraigned on July 26 in Nantucket District Court for one count of rape of a child and two counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, then was released on bail on July 29, ICE said. He was subsequently arrested by ICE on Sept. 10.

Aldana-Arevalo has been charged with “numerous” sex crimes against a child on the island, including the rape charge, ICE said. ERO Boston Field Office Director Todd M. Lyons called Aldana-Arevalo’s alleged crimes “detestable and disturbing.”

“ERO Boston will not tolerate such a threat to the most vulnerable of our population,” Lyons said. “We will continue to prioritize the safety of our public by arresting and removing egregious noncitizen offenders from our New England neighborhoods.”

A number of those apprehended by ICE in the operation had previously been arrested by local Nantucket authorities, but were out on bail. Some had been arrested multiple times for different crimes. One of those arrested, a Guatemalan national, had previously been deported to Guatemala in 2011 but subsequently reentered the US without authorization, ICE said.

ICE commonly conducts raids where it arrests multiple people in a short span of time in a certain region, when crimes are not necessarily related to each other.

It’s not often that ICE conducts multi-day operations on Nantucket. ICE’s last public statement about ICE arrests in Nantucket is from July of 2012, when the agency arrested three people there.

In recent weeks, the arrests have been widely shared in conservative and right wing circles, among media personalities like Megyn Kelly and representatives from the Massachusetts GOP — sometimes accompanied by suggestions that Democrats are responsible for the harm caused by those arrested.

“It is outrageous that individuals in the country illegally at the time of their arrests were not immediately handed over to ICE but were instead allowed to post bail and return to our communities,” Chris Lauzon, a Republican candidate for State Senate for the Cape and Islands said in a statement this week. “I cannot fathom why any court would ignore ICE detainers for those who have committed such heinous crimes. The Democratic supermajority’s failure to protect our communities is inexcusable.”

Elizabeth Sweet, the executive director of the MIRA Coalition called the allegations against those detained by ICE on Nantucket “extremely disturbing, and unacceptable if true.” But she cautioned against using the arrests to push forward “anti-immigrant and xenophobic narratives.”

“We must not let the unjust hate and fear that has come to dominate the national conversation around immigration do so here,” Sweet said “Those detained by ICE have a right to due process, and their cases must work their way through the justice system in a fair and ethical manner.”

ICE and Nantucket police said they had worked together to carry out the operation. They have not discussed how they came to the agencies’ attention. Covington thanked the Nantucket police for their “cooperation and support throughout this process” in a statement. Nantucket police, also in a public statement, said their Detective Unit had assisted ICE with identifying addresses provided to them by ICE.

Across the Boston ICE field office’s area of responsibility, which includes Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont, ICE arrests remained relatively low during the pandemic years, largely due to a dip in ICE activity. But as pandemic restrictions began to ease, in fiscal year 2022, ICE Boston arrested 6,971 individuals in its area of responsibility, according to ICE’s arrest statistics dashboard. In the 2023 fiscal year, that number rose to 8,944 people arrested by the ICE Boston field office.

Nationally, ICE arrests of individuals with criminal convictions have risen about 48 percent between fiscal year 2022 and fiscal year 2023, ICE data show.

According to ICE, the agency’s most commonly arrests people who have violated immigration law and have a conviction involving a DUI, drug possession, or an assault, and those who have criminal traffic offenses.

Massachusetts is not a sanctuary state, but has eight sanctuary cities where cooperation with local law enforcement and immigration authorities is limited to varying degrees. Nantucket is not a sanctuary community.

Along with Aldana-Arevalo, the other individuals arrested were Gean Do Amaral Belafronte, a Brazilian national charged with sex crimes against a Nantucket resident and Elmer Sola, a Salvadoran national facing 11 charges of sex crimes against a child in Nantucket, according to ICE. Felix Alberto Perez-Gomez, a Guatemalan national charged with a sex crime against a Nantucket resident, and Angel Gabriel Deras-Mejia, charged with assault and battery and who ICE allege is an MS-13 gang member, were also arrested.

In Nantucket, the town administration said in an emailed statement to the Globe on behalf of Nantucket town manager Elizabeth Gibson, that the Nantucket Select Board and the municipal administration were aware of the recent ICE arrests. According to their understanding, the statement said, the agency’s actions were not random, but “targeted” towards individuals who committed violent crimes on Nantucket.

“We recognize that this activity may have been unsettling to many of our residents,” the statement said. “We are committed to the safety and well-being of members of our community regardless of their immigration status, and are relieved that these offenders have been apprehended by the appropriate authorities and are no longer a threat to our community.”

Toby Brown, the chair of the Nantucket GOP, said that the arrests weren’t “surprising.”

“We’re actually happy that they’re finally getting what they deserve,” he said about those arrested. “I think it’s a really good thing that we’re finally getting the national attention that we need.”

But Brown emphasized that there are many immigrants who bring a host of positive attributes to Nantucket, too. The Nantucket immigrant population has risen in recent years, with many working in the hospitality industry.

“It’s not immigration that we are concerned about,” he said. “We want good people to come here. It is the bad people that is very concerning.”