Immigration arrests on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket on Tuesday have rattled the island communities.
Federal agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were operating on both islands, detaining individuals. Special agents from the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Drug Enforcement Administration assisted in the effort.
According to a press release from ICE, “around 40" people were apprehended in actions on both islands.
In photographs and per eyewitness statements, many of the agents wore masks during the enforcement action.
The ICE statement says that among those arrested were people described as a “documented member of the notorious MS-13 street gang and at least one child sex offender.”
No names of those taken into custody were given, nor were supporting details of the allegations supplied.
Gov. Healey blasts the arrests
Speaking to the press in Boston on Wednesday, Governor Maura Healey strongly criticized the federal action on the islands.
“It’s one thing to go after and target those who have committed crimes, who are here unlawfully,” Healey said. “It’s concerning when we see people, moms and dads, being ripped away from families, neighbors, coworkers taken away—literally, it looks like, on the way to job sites in Nantucket and on the Vineyard.”
Healey said federal agencies had provided no information to the state and local police departments on yesterday’s arrests, and she called for more information from ICE.
“We have zero information,” Healey said. “Local police chiefs have zero information about what’s happening in their communities. We at the state level have zero information about what is happening in communities. And that needs to change. We need to get answers.”
She expressed wider frustration with how federal immigration actions in Massachusetts appear to be skirting due process. “People are being picked up, we have no information about their circumstance,” Healey said. “There have been real questions raised about due process and whether or not ICE and immigration officials are following, complying with due process here and in other states, and we need answers.”
Agents moved across both islands, with support from the Coast Guard
According to reporting from the Martha’s Vineyard newspapers—both the MV Times and the Vineyard Gazette—agents in unmarked vehicles were stopping work vans and asking occupants to show documentation of residency status.
Nantucket Current reported that agents were pulling over cars on the road and removing occupants.
The Current posted a video to social media showing what it identified as 12 detainees being transported off-island on a Coast Guard boat.
Coast Guard officials confirmed to CAI that their boats were used to transport agents and detainees to the mainland. A Coast Guard official told CAI that plans for the enforcement action had been in place since “at least a week ago.”
Nantucket police confirmed to CAI that they had been notified Monday of federal agents’ intention to come on Tuesday. Local police did not participate in the arrests.
In a statement, State Senator Julian Cyr said, “I am saddened and alarmed by large-scale immigration enforcement actions carried out by ICE and other federal agencies on both Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket on May 27. The operation appears to have gone far beyond any targeted effort. Multiple work vans were profiled and pulled over across the islands, individuals were questioned without clear cause, and forty people were taken into federal custody and dramatically removed from the islands aboard Coast Guard vessels.”
Congressman Bill Keating’s office issued a statement urging the Trump administration and ICE agents to give anyone detained due process.
This is a developing story. Check back for details.
This story was originally published by CAI. It was shared as part of the New England News Collaborative.
