MILFORD — Last week, João Marciano do Carmo returned to his family in Milford, embraced his crying mother, and fell into the comfort of his living room couch. The 19-year-old had finally made the journey home from a jail in Mississippi, one of the detention facilities where he had been held since September on an immigration-related violation that, lawyers say, never warranted his detention in the first place.
He’s not alone, according to a Globe analysis of arrest and detention data and interviews with immigration attorneys and experts. Immigrants in New England targeted for deportation are being whisked away quicker and to farther locations than ever before. They are increasingly brought to remote areas of the country where they face more conservative judges who are less likely to grant them freedom, according to the interviews and the data analysis.
As agents carry out that agenda, advocates and legal analysts say, immigrants have lost essential due process rights. Detainees legally eligible for bond are moved quickly, and at times in violation of court orders. It can take days for them to be able to call their families. Often, not even their lawyers know where they are.
Legal experts warn the rapid rise in transfers to far-flung states is likely to accelerate as billions of dollars allocated by Congress in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last summer begin to flow to detention centers.
“To be super clear, this is the beginning,” said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, an attorney and policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. “They are ramping up, but they have plans to go so much bigger.”
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement Tuesday that detainees do receive due process and are provided “ample opportunity” to communicate with attorneys and family members. McLaughlin said ICE makes transfer decisions based on bed space.
“No lawbreakers in the history of human civilization have been treated better than illegal aliens in the United States,” McLaughlin said. “Despite a historic number of [court] injunctions, DHS is working rapidly overtime to remove these aliens from detentions centers to their final destination — home."
ICE arrests in the Boston area more than tripled in the first seven months of this year compared to last, while the number of people sent to facilities outside New England spiked sixfold, according to the Globe analysis.
At the same time, the median period before someone was moved to an out-of-region facility was cut in half. Last year, it took around 20 days to move someone out of New England, while this year it took around 10 days.
In Carmo’s case, the teenager, who moved to Milford from Brazil at age 11, was arrested on the way to work at a nearby farm with a friend from Milford High School. Immigration agents shattered his car window to apprehend them. The two teenagers, who have no criminal record, were put in a van with their hands and feet shackled.
For the first six days, they weren’t allowed to make a phone call. None of their family members or their lawyer could locate them. For days, their mothers in Milford wondered if they were alive.
In the seven weeks that followed, Carmo and Marcos Oliveira Martins were transferred from detention facility to detention facility, with stops in Massachusetts, New York, and Mississippi. They slept on concrete, the floor of a gymnasium, and in traditional jail cells.
“I was being really treated like an animal ... I didn’t matter,” Carmo said at his home. His journey from New York to Mississippi lasted 16 hours between buses and a plane, and he was shackled the entire time.
“I really thought it was going to be over for me, because nobody knew where I was going,” he said. “I just kept praying for God to help me.”
The vast majority of people detained by ICE in the Boston area were sent to states in the federal court system’s Fifth Circuit, which is known as more conservative leaning, and includes states like Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi.
Their detentions occur even when they have legitimate challenges to their deportation: Only a small fraction of immigrants arrested by ICE in the Boston area in recent months have been convicted of violent criminal charges.
“It feels like they’re moving cattle,” said Boston immigration attorney Elizabeth Shaw. “There’s no humanity in it.”
In one recent example, Vanessa Vasquez Valladares, one of nine workers detained during a raid of an Allston car wash, was transferred to Texas within four days of her arrest. She is still being held as her lawyer petitions for her release on bond, saying that she had no criminal record and was authorized to work in the United States.
ICE’s tactics are “terrorizing immigrants into submission to either self-deport or to give up their due process rights,” said Heather Arroyo, an immigration attorney with Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, an organization that provides pro bono legal assistance to immigrants.
“The quick transfers are a part of this interference with due process,” she said. “It blocks their access to courts, to their attorneys, and to any information about what’s happening to them.”
Multiple attorneys told the Globe they see ICE’s decision to move immigrants across the country as a deliberate, legal decision. While Massachusetts courts have a reputation for holding bond hearings and releasing detainees, judges in other states often allow ICE to detain people indefinitely.
“In Massachusetts, we’ve got judge after judge issuing decisions saying that it’s improper to say that mandatory detention applies to everyone. [Immigrants] are entitled to a bond hearing and to be released unless there’s cause,” said Jill Seeber, a Boston-based immigration attorney.
After filings known as habeas petitions are filed, judges often make rulings preventing ICE from moving detainees from Massachusetts to other states. However, attorneys must file the petition while the person is still in Massachusetts.
Because people are rarely allowed a phone call when arrested, it can take days for families to realize someone was arrested by ICE and to contact attorneys. By that point, it’s likely ICE already transferred them to a different state. Some times by plane. Other times by bus. Routinely, they are in shackles, lawyers said, often unable to make a phone call or even use the bathroom.
One of Seeber’s clients, Isao Cordero, was recently subjected to repeated transfers across the country. He came to the US with his family seeking safety, and Seeber said he did all the right things. Along with his wife and six children, he waited in Mexico for an appointment to state their intention to apply for asylum. The government allowed the Central American family into the country and gave them a court date. They eventually received work authorization.
“Everything that’s ever been asked of him, he’s done, including waiting at the border to cross the border,” Seeber said.
When ICE stopped his car in Holliston on Sept. 27, Cordero attempted to show them his work authorization card, Social Security card, and driver’s license that were in his pocket. Agents declined to see his documents, threw him to the ground, and handcuffed him, he said.
He was then transferred across four states. It took six days for him to be allowed to speak with his lawyers, and eight days to be able to call his wife. Cordero doesn’t have a criminal record, and his lawyer said the government never provided a reason for his arrest. And even after a judge ruled for him to be returned to Massachusetts, ICE held him in custody for five additional days, including three in Louisiana.
“Louisiana is a very isolated place ... the immigration officials themselves [say] ‘Your deportation is coming.’ They keep saying it,” Cordero said. “And you’re worried, with no way out, no communication with your family, no communication with a lawyer who can guide you.”
Louisiana has emerged as a major staging hub for New England immigrants transferred out of the region, with over 1,000 detainees initially held there in just the first seven months of this year.
Litigating these cases in court is expensive, takes time, and is extremely challenging. Those who don’t have access to attorneys might accidentally sign their voluntary deportation, or stay detained indefinitely, even if they qualify for asylum or other forms of legalizing their status in the United States.
The two Milford teens, Carmo and Martins, were detained together and found solace with each other. They dreamt about life outside, and started thinking about a business they could start back in Milford.
The pair, however, had separate court hearings and separate cases. Carmo entered the United States with a visa. Martins crossed the border with his family seeking asylum.
On Nov. 17, Carmo was released from the Adams County Correctional Facility, after an immigration judge in Texas granted him bond. His brother-in-law drove from Milford to pick him up, and they drove back for 24 hours straight.
Family and friends carried a “welcome back home” sign and held balloons. After many happy tears, Carmo asked his mother for a “cafézinho,” or a “little coffee,” and ate his first home-cooked meal in almost two months: lasagna, ribs, and rice.
“I came here when I was young. I grew up in this country,” Carmo said. “This is my home.”
Martins, meanwhile, is still detained, fighting his deportation — and detention.
Marcela Rodrigues can be reached at marcela.rodrigues@globe.com. Scooty Nickerson can be reached at scooty.nickerson@globe.com.