ICE Detains Brazilian DACA Applicant Picking Up Son

Bruna Caroline Ferreira, a 33-year-old Brazilian immigrant and mother of an 11-year-old boy, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on November 12 while driving in Revere, Massachusetts, to pick up her son from school in New Hampshire. The arrest has left her in custody at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center, more than 1,500 miles from her home, amid ongoing removal proceedings.

Ferreira, who entered the United States as a child with her family on a B-2 tourist visa that expired in June 1999, has lived in the country for over two decades. According to her attorney, Todd Pomerleau, she enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which provides temporary protections for certain undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as minors, and was in the process of applying for a green card at the time of her detention. Pomerleau described the arrest as occurring without explanation or due process, with Ferreira transferred rapidly through facilities in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and finally Louisiana. "She was bounced ... on this unconstitutional merry-go-round," he said.

The Department of Homeland Security has stated that...