ICE ordered to release Marlborough 14-year-old girl, Trahan says

A federal judge ordered immigration officials to release a Marlborough 14-year-old and reunite her with her family after, a Massachusetts lawmaker said, agents detained her and transferred her out of the state.

“To be absolutely clear, a 14-year-old girl should never have been detained in the first place. The fact that it took a federal court order to return a child to her family is a damning indictment of DHS policy,” U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan wrote on social media Wednesday evening.

Trahan issued an initial statement about the incident Wednesday afternoon. On Tuesday, the teenage girl from Marlborough with no criminal history was detained by immigration agents, she said. The girl was apparently used to “coerce” her father into turning himself in for deportation during an “overnight attempt to use her as a hostage,” according to Trahan. 

“As a mother to 15- and 11-year-old daughters, I am furious. This is not immigration enforcement. It’s the deliberate targeting of a child to inflict maximum pain on her family,” Trahan said. 

Trahan did not include any other identifying information about the girl, her family, or what led to the arrest. 

Lauren Bis, deputy assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, refuted Trahan’s claims and said that the girl was saved from gang members.

“ICE did NOT arrest a 14-year-old girl—our officers RESCUSED [sic] her from suspected gang members,” Bis said in a statement.

According to Bis, the girl was detained as ICE pursued two people, identified as Igor Jose Cordeiro Ferreira, 28, and Lucas Da Silva Senes De Almeida, 25. They are both “illegal aliens” from Brazil that are affiliated with Primeiro Comando da Capital, a crime syndicate based in South America, she said. Bis described them as “suspected Primeiro Comando da Massachusetts gang members.”

The girl was with the two men, but did not identify either of them as legal guardians to federal authorities. Agents confirmed that she was not related to either of them, Bis said.

“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. As standard protocol, she will remain in ORR custody pending the identification of legal guardians,” Bis said.

The vehicle that Cordeiro Ferreira and Senes De Almeida were in when agents arrested them was connected to an alleged attempted home invasion in Walpole earlier this month, according to Bis.

The girl is not enrolled in Marlborough Public Schools, a spokesperson for the district said in a statement.

Trahan drew a line between this alleged incident and the detainment of Liam Ramos. The 5-year-old was detained by federal agents in Minnesota earlier this year. The boy’s mother and others accused ICE of using Ramos as “bait” in order to take other members of his family into custody. Federal officials have denied this. 

Images of him being escorted by a federal agent into an ICE vehicle went viral online, prompting widespread outrage. Ramos and his father were eventually released following a judge’s order. That judge sharply criticized the Trump administration for its “ill-conceived and incompetently-implemented government pursuit of daily deportation quotas.”

Trahan said that there are similarities between the two cases. 

“The nation watched in horror as a little boy with a blue bunny hat and Spiderman backpack was taken into custody by federal immigration authorities,” she said. “The ordeal was so heinous that a federal judge ordered his release and called it ‘cruel’ and ‘bereft of human decency.’ But now, federal immigration agents seem to be doing it again, this time here in Massachusetts.”