As immigration raids increase nationwide, minors are being detained, displaced, and left to bear the hidden cost of mass deportations

A 13-year-old was detained by ICE in Massachusetts, the third minor to be detained in the state that has made national headlines.

13-year-old Arthur Berto (Photo via GoFundMe)

BOSTON—For the first time in Everett’s history, a minor as young as 13-years old was detained, according to the city’s police chief, a decision that’s left a Massachusetts community protesting and a family fighting to bring their son home.

Last Thursday, 13-year-old Arthur Berto was taken into custody after police said he made a “credible threat” to another student with a knife. According to his family, Arthur spent about an hour at the Everett Police Station before he he was set to be released. But an hour later, he was sent to the ICE’s Burlington Office. After that, he was transported more than 500 miles away to Northwest Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Winchester, Virginia, separated from his family and his legal counsel.

“We are heartbroken and doing everything we can to bring our son back to Massachusetts, where he belongs — with his family, his school, and his community,” the Berto family wrote in a GoFundMe post. “Our attorney immediately filed a federal habeas corpus petition within 15 minutes of learning what happened. A federal judge in Boston has already ordered the government to respond, and the case is moving quickly.”

Arthur is one of the youngest known persons detained in connection to the Trump administration’s immigration campaign in Massachusetts, dubbed “Operation Patriot 2.0” More than 1,400 people have been detained since these raids began sweeping through the state in early September. The first waves that occurred, called “Operation Patriot”, arrested over 1,500 people during the summer, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

Within those raids we have covered similar cases of minors being detained in the state, including 18-year-old Marcelo Gomes da Silva, who was detained on his way to volleyball practice, and Gustavo Oliveira who was taken into ICE custody after stopping for a sandwich at a bakery in Milford. Both were later released, and their cases were one the earliest to make national headlines regarding the detention of minors in Massachusetts.

But Arthur’s case is different — not only because of his age, but because of his alleged crime, and the speed of his transfer from a local police station to Burlington ICE office to a Virginia detention facility. It shows how ICE can efficiently can track individuals once they’ve been fingerprinted, despite local police saying they don’t cooperate with ICE directly on enforcement.

“ICE operates independently and has the authority to access certain law enforcement databases and take action on its own accord,” Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria said during a news conference.

Immigrant rights advocates and attorneys have condemned the decision to send Arthur away from his home state. In both Da Silva’s and Oliveira’s cases, the minors were detained in-state and none were ever sent hundreds of miles from their families.

Andrew Lattarulo, the Berto family’s attorney, criticized Arthur’s transfer to Virginia, telling CNN it “raises serious concerns about access to counsel and the government’s intent to hinder effective legal representation.”

Across Massachusetts and the country, advocates say this is part of a broader pattern, where family separation continues under new forms and justifications.

Immigration attorney Melanie Shapiro, who has practiced in Massachusetts for more than 13 years, shared to us the story of a Brazilian mother with a two year old whose husband was told by ICE to “self-deport.” Despite this, ICE prepared to detain him, and the day off his arrest her blood pressure spiked to 181/121, which she said requires immediate medical attention.

Shapiro pleaded with officials for time, saying, “I’m not trying to go home with the baby today, please. Because if they took him and the wife was out there, she’s in no condition to take care of this child.”

Despite receiving additional time that day and purchasing a flight ticket back to Brazil, Shapiro said her husband was eventually detained and sent to Mississippi for nearly a month.

Although she has worked with similar cases over the last decade, Shapiro says what makes recent cases different is the speed at which they are coming, and the unique nature of each.

“It’s just a different type of caseload… it’s a lot more people calling frantically that their friend, their spouse, their family member was just picked up, they don’t know what to do. I’ve seen that increase immensely over the last couple of months,” she said.

“At least 50% of the calls I get are, ‘Oh my God, this person’s been detained.’ And normally, that would be very infrequent,” Shapiro added.

Arthur’s story represents that same chaos—the randomness of enforcement in a system that leaves families terrified and disoriented.

“They didn’t give me any information,” Arthur’s mother told CNN. The family, originally from Brazil, has had a pending asylum application since arriving in the United States in 2021. “I asked where he was being taken, and they said they weren’t allowed to say. He cried a lot because he had never been away from home or his family. He was desperate, saying ICE had taken him.”

Arthur and his attorney said they spent days waiting to learn why he was detained. That information finally came Tuesday afternoon, when a federal judge ordered ICE to provide an explanation by Wednesday. Whether that order has been met remains unclear, as court records are sealed.

Everett residents protesting (Screenshot via Mass Live YouTube)

Meanwhile, Everett residents continues to protest the detention of Arthur, whose story has become part of a larger reckoning with the reach and power of federal immigration enforcement, local politicians say.

“If you think taking a child — a 13-year-old child — away from their parents, away from their home, and sending them to another state to sleep on the floor… if you think this is OK, then we have a bigger problem in our community,” said Everett Councilor Guerline Alcy Jabouin.