A 13-year-old Massachusetts boy was detained by federal immigration agents, claiming he was armed with a gun — but local officials later revealed the teen never had a firearm.
The case has been met online with a mixture of shock and confusion, with federal officials offering a different set of details from the press and city officials.
The seventh grader from Everett, Massachusetts, who has not been publicly named, was arrested last Thursday after local police received a tip that he had made a “violent threat” against another boy within a school, the city’s mayor said. Officers then arrested and booked the teen at the police station, from where Immigration and Customs Enforcement took him into custody.
The boy was initially held at a nearby ICE facility before being transported to the Northwestern Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Virginia, 500 miles from his hometown, the Boston Globe reported on Sunday.
The boy and his family are Brazilian nationals and have a pending asylum case, his immigration lawyer told the paper.
The story was met with outrage on social media, and got the attention of the Department of Homeland Security, which replied to one tweet with the “facts.”
“Here are the facts: he posed a public safety threat with an extensive rap sheet including violent assault with a dangerous weapon, battery, breaking and entering, destruction of property,” Tricia McLaughlin, a DHS spokesperson, wrote on Monday.
“He was in possession of a firearm and 5-7 inch knife when arrested,” she said.
The DHS doubled down on its claims the following day, repeating that the teen was carrying a gun and a knife and had an “extensive” rap sheet. “Shameful @BostonGlobe—lying about public safety threats,” read the post from the official department account.
At a press conference later on Tuesday, however, Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria contradicted federal officials’ statements, saying officers recovered a knife, but no gun.
The Independent has reached out to DHS on whether it stands by its original statements and the Everett Police Department and the lawyer about the teen’s alleged rap sheet.
Police didn’t contact ICE about the arrest, the mayor said: “Everett Police does not make arrests based on immigration status.”
Once someone is taken into ICE custody, both the Everett police and the city have “no authority or control over what happens next,” DeMaria said.
Local law enforcement told the teen’s mother, Josiele Berto, she could pick up her son at the station. An hour and a half later, she was told he was taken to an ICE facility. “My world collapsed,” Berto told the Globe in Portuguese.
A lawyer for the teen filed an emergency habeas corpus petition on Friday. The district judge noted the teen was “presumably in the company of unrelated adult detainees” and ordered the government to “show cause…for grounds justifying the detention of a juvenile” by Tuesday, otherwise the boy must be given a bond hearing by Friday, court documents show.
However, the judge at the time was under the impression that the teen was still being held at the Massachusetts ICE facility. The government later explained that the petition was filed while the boy was en route to Virginia, so this court “lacks jurisdiction,” the judge wrote. The case was transferred to the proper district on Wednesday.
