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Highly-publicized federal immigration arrests and deportations in U.S. cities have sown widespread anxiety in the Island’s Brazilian community, which includes an unknown but significant number of undocumented residents.
“People are living their lives with fear and uncertainty,” said pastor Ricardo Duarte of Lagoinha Martha’s Vineyard Church in Vineyard Haven, speaking with the Gazette in Brazilian Portuguese.
The concern comes after President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for a crackdown on illegal immigration, removed a policy that prevented immigration arrests at places such as schools, and signed a bill that allows officers to detain immigrants for even minor charges.
The changes in Washington have led some fearful immigrants to stay indoors and keep their children out of school this week. Rumors and misinformation on social media are stoking the dread, Reverend Duarte said.
“Almost every day there is fake news that’s increasing the fear in the minds of people,” he said.
For example, an anonymous post this week on Brazukada, the popular Facebook page for Vineyard Brazilians, warned in Portuguese of a statewide “massive immigration operation” on Jan. 30, supposedly announced by the “Massachusetts Department of Immigrant Protection” — an agency that does not exist.
Another anonymous post on Wednesday claimed that “immigration cars have scheduled a ferry” for the event. On Thursday, more rumors circulated about ICE agents arriving on the Island.
Island tax preparer and notary public Vilmar Rodrigues, whose services include helping his fellow Brazilian immigrants navigate the complexities of living and working in a new country, said unsupported claims like these have been misleading Brazilians living on the Vineyard and Cape Cod who are used to getting their news from each other on social media.
“The bad things can spread so fast,” he said.
Formerly an attorney in São Paulo, Mr. Rodrigues moved to the Vineyard about eight years ago because he and his wife wanted a safer place to raise their son and daughter, he told the Gazette during an English-language interview at his financial services office in Vineyard Haven.
Facebook and WhatsApp are the main sources of information — and disinformation — for the Brazilian expatriate community, he said.
“If I say in the WhatsApp that the ICE is on the Island now, they’re going to trust that,” Mr. Rodrigues said.
He called for caution in posting unfounded rumors.
“If you don’t know 100 per cent, please don’t publish,” he said. “Don’t spread this, otherwise the people will be at home or go home to Brazil.”
Immigration attorney Rachel Self of Chappaquiddick urged calm, saying the current storm of arrests and deportations recalls a similar spate of enforcement early in President Trump’s first administration eight years ago.
“What we are seeing is the same things that have always happened, but this time he’s making sure cameras are there,” said Ms. Self, who has been representing immigrants for more than 20 years.
“The most important thing is to take a breath at this point,” she said, noting that a number of the president’s new initiatives are being challenged in courts of law.
Brazilian expatriates make up an estimated 20 per cent of the Island’s year-round population — which topped 20,000 in the latest U.S. census, although many people believe it is higher now — and are heavily represented in the construction, landscaping and cleaning trades here, as well as in the public schools.
At the Edgartown School, for instance, close to 40 per cent of last year’s students spoke a language other than English — usually Brazilian Portuguese — at home. In Tisbury, that number was above 50 per cent.
A recent letter to parents, from the office of schools superintendent Richard Smith, outlines protections for schoolchildren that include the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act and district policies against bullying, harassment and discrimination.
“We want to assure you of the steps we take to protect our students and their families from any unnecessary disruptions or fear regarding immigration enforcement,” the school district letter read, in part.
At the Jan. 16 meeting of the all-Island school committee, chair Amy Houghton said all students are protected equally by the committee’s Safe Schools policy, approved in 2017.
“The Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School, the Edgartown School, the Oak Bluffs School, the Tisbury School, the West Tisbury School, the Chilmark school and the Martha’s Vineyard charter school [are] safe zones for the educational rights of all students, regardless of immigration status,” Ms. Houghton said.
Lacking the documents required to live in the United States as an immigrant is not, by itself, a criminal act, said Ms. Self, the attorney.
“As of today, the act of being present in the U.S. without documentation is not a crime under federal law. It is a civil infraction. In fact, Congress refused to make undocumented presence a crime,” she told the Gazette, citing the Border Protection, Antiterrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005.
Driving without a license and holding a job, however, are against the law for undocumented immigrants and place them at risk of deportation under the federal administration’s newly-expanded enforcement priorities, Ms. Self said.
“[It] doesn’t even matter if you haven’t been convicted of a crime. You are now removable if you are charged with one,” she told the Gazette. “You are as much a priority for removal as a murderer.”
Regardless of federal policy, Edgartown police chief Chris Dolby confirmed Wednesday that local law enforcement has no responsibility for immigration control and only coordinates with ICE when a criminal warrant has been issued.
“Some people are dangerous people, and we don’t want them on our Island,” Chief Dolby said.
Everyday Vineyard residents, however, have little to fear, he said, because Island police are not looking for immigrants.
A legal advisory from the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, issued this week, cited a 2017 decision by the state’s top court clarifying the separation of powers between federal authorities and local law enforcement.
State law does not give police the right to hold anyone based solely on immigration status, according to the advisory.
“If ICE provides only a civil detainer (without a judicial warrant), municipal and campus law enforcement in Massachusetts do not have the legal authority to detain the individual,” the police chiefs group wrote.
Keeping a person in custody based only on an ICE detainer, without a warrant, is considered an unlawful arrest in Massachusetts, the advisory states.
Closer to home, a 2017 town meeting vote specifically bars Edgartown from spending local funds on immigration enforcement, although Chief Dolby said it was largely a symbolic act.
“We don’t do that,” he said. “We never have.”
However, if a warrant is executed for a criminal suspect on private property, everyone else on the premises may also be taken into custody as “collateral pickups,” under the expanded Trump policy, Ms. Self said.
Documented or not, non-citizens on U.S. soil are protected by Constitutional rights that include due process under the 14th Amendment, she said.
“If ICE comes to your door, they need your consent to enter. If they don’t have a warrant signed by a judge, you can refuse to let them in [and] you have the right not to tell them anything [until] you speak with a lawyer,” Ms. Self told the Gazette.
“Knowing your rights is very important. Knowledge is power,” she said.
Ms. Self also encouraged people seeking legal status to continue with the process, in consultation with a licensed attorney.
“If you’re eligible for an immigration benefit [such as Temporary Protected Status], apply for it. Don’t wait. If you’re eligible to apply for citizenship, apply now,” she said.
As safeguards against the uncertain future, Ms. Self recommended
that immigrants make sure they have all of their legal documents in order, with copies, and that they consider naming a power of attorney in case they are separated from their families.
“We are on shifting sands and the goalpost is moving daily, and sometimes it’s moving hourly,” she said.
Monica Brady-Myerov contributed reporting and translating.
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