Hello, readers. Today I come to you with a story probably familiar to hundreds of families, work colleagues, and neighbors who have seen members of their communities picked up by federal immigration officials in the last year of the Trump administration’s crackdown.
It starts like this: A person with a permit to work in the United States has been living life normally for years as their immigration case works its way through court. Sometimes, if they have left their home country under threat, they’re awaiting a decision on asylum. Other times, they’re awaiting a green card, which will make them a permanent resident.
Before the Trump administration’s crackdown, people with active immigration cases would typically be left alone unless they broke a law, subjecting them to criminal charges and, oftentimes, a removal order. But in the last year or so, Massachusetts, like the rest of the country, has seen a sharp uptick in what are known as warrantless immigration arrests. What that means: Federal immigration enforcement officers are picking up immigrants who are not facing criminal charges but, because agents believe the person is here unlawfully and potentially a flight risk, they can detain them anyway.
In this case, the person the feds picked up was Bruno Crevelin Soares, a chef at Prima in Charlestown, whose brother-in-law says he was detained by ICE on Aug. 30 while he was in the car with his wife and toddler.
Dyego Araujo, Soares’ brother-in-law, said Soares, who is a Brazilian national, had a permit to work in the United States. He made a GoFundMe fund-raiser to help cover Soares’ legal fees and potential bond costs.
“His 3-year-old daughter depends on him and asks for her father every day,” Araujo wrote. “His absence has been heartbreaking for his family, who simply want him home.”
Soares is well known in the area, having worked on Nantucket and in Boston. When he came to Prima, his colleagues said he “crushed” his tasting interview, a common method restaurants use to evaluate a chef’s work under pressure.
His cooking skills shine on social media, too, where he posts videos showing the ins and outs of working the kitchen.
On Instagram, he thoughtfully places seared tuna atop a cloud of creamy ajo blanco. He butchers a massive tuna. He chars, sous-vides, blends, and pipes cooked apples from a pastry bag into shiny, green dollops. He uses a mandolin to layer thousands of potato slices, which are pressed, baked, chilled, and ultimately fried into glimmering squares of mille-feuille.
Annelise Araujo, whose law firm represents many immigrants in a similar situation, said the restaurant industry, much like construction and cleaning, has been “identified by the federal government as an industry that has immigrant workers.”
She said in the last year, she’s “for sure” seen an increase of so-called warrantless arrests, in which immigrants are detained without a criminal charge.
Araujo often fields calls from owners or employees at restaurants in South Boston, the South End, and the North End, who are “absolutely desperate” to help their detained colleagues.
“We are not talking about McDonald’s or Applebee’s,” she said. “We are talking about neighborhood restaurants that . . . have sometimes one or two line workers in the kitchen.”
One arrest, she said, can send shockwaves through a restaurant that may already be running on tight margins.
“If you are another immigrant who works in that restaurant and that happens right before your eyes, you will think twice before going to work,” she said.
In a Facebook post, Nathan Parsons, a chef on Nantucket and friend of Soares’, shared a link to the GoFundMe, asking for people to donate.
“Anyone who knows Bruno, knows that he worked tirelessly to bring his family to be with him here in Massachusetts legally,” he wrote. “Everything he did was above board and with assistance from immigration lawyers. Why are we doing this to good honest humans that are following the rules? I just don’t understand.”
For several nights, ICE held do Carmo Santana at the agency’s field office in Burlington without medical care. For more than a year, immigrants and their attorneys have alleged inadequate conditions at this facility.
- He called 911 to get his partner help. But ICE came and took her instead. The Boston Globe
- Trump administration overhauls immigration courts in Mass., appoints over a dozen new judges lacking immigration law experience The Boston Globe
- Massachusetts joins 21 states in lawsuit challenging new immigration rule The Boston Globe
- Florida Republican criticizes Trump on immigration in campaign ad Politico
- ICE officer pleads not guilty to charges he lied to the FBI about nonfatal Minneapolis shooting The Associated Press
- How Trump’s new green card policy could affect immigrant families The New York Times
A group calling itself the De-ICE Action Network will hold a visibility event at the Museum of Science on Saturday to educate the public about ICE’s plans to buy robot dogs from Boston Dynamics. More details can be found here.
You can find our list of resources in multiple languages here.
Samantha J. Gross can be reached at samantha.gross@globe.com. Follow her @samanthajgross.