ICE illegally held Mass. man released days before his wedding celebration, court rules

A Massachusetts resident and Brazilian national was released from federal custody just days before his wedding celebration after a judge ruled that U.S. immigration officials detained him illegally.

Carlos Roberto De Andrade, 36, was released from a facility in Plymouth late Tuesday night, according to his attorney, who said the legal saga forced De Andrade and his wife to postpone a wedding celebration planned for later this week. 

De Andrade had been in custody since Aug. 22, when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested him as he reported for a routine check-in at the agency’s Burlington outpost. Immigration attorney Shaan Chatterjee said De Andrade had been “diligent” about check-ins, and the ICE agent who arrested him offered no reason other than “a change in policy.”

“I mean, Carlos has zero criminal history, and [the Department of Homeland Security] has repeated that in all of their filings,” Chatterjee said in an interview. “So it looks like it’s just part of the new mass carceral agenda of the new administration. That’s why Carlos was arrested.”

According to Chatterjee, De Andrade fled Brazil after a police officer he’d seen selling drugs attacked him and threatened to kill him. He applied for asylum after crossing the U.S. border into California in 2021 and soon settled in Massachusetts, where he married his wife, Kim, last year. The couple planned to hold a more formal wedding celebration this month, but De Andrade’s arrest threw a wrench in their plans. 

On Tuesday, Judge F. Dennis Saylor ruled that the terms of De Andrade’s parole entitled him to a bond hearing and agreed that he was being held unlawfully. ICE did not immediately return a request for comment Thursday.

Many non-citizens processed at the border are legally considered “applicants for admission,” but De Andrade was released into the U.S. in 2021 on conditional parole — an important distinction in immigration law.

“ICE tried to argue that Carlos was subject to mandatory detention under the law that has traditionally been applied to people seeking to enter the U.S.,” Chatterjee explained. “But as Judge Saylor noted in his thoughtful decision, ICE had already let him into the country four years ago … pursuant to the law that applies to people that are already in the United States.”

In other words, federal officials essentially asked the court “to turn a blind eye to the circumstances of [De Andrade’s] release and the events of the last four years,” Saylor wrote.

“Congress provided a mechanism for paroling applicants for admission into the United States without changing their status,” he noted. “The government elected not to use that mechanism. It cannot now turn back the clock, and neither can the Court.”

Chatterjee said De Andrade is happy to be back home with his wife, even though ICE is still withholding personal belongings like his cellphone, wallet, and driver’s license. 

“It’s just mind boggling why someone who is doing everything the right way has to sit in jail with criminals, based on a law that federal judges have consistently ruled doesn’t even apply to him,” Chatterjee said. 

“This is a guy that has zero criminal history, that has filed multiple applications to get lawful status, was checking in with ICE, was not trying to hide anything, and still had to have his liberty taken from him for no articulable reason,” he continued. “And so the whole rhetoric about, ‘Oh, the government’s only going after the bad immigrants and the criminals,’ is just squarely contradicted by what we’re seeing on the ground.”

Abby Patkin

Staff Writer

Abby Patkin is a general assignment news reporter whose work touches on public transit, crime, health, and everything in between.

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