Brazilian migrants illegally residing in the United States are utilizing WhatsApp group messaging chats to share live information on ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids and avoid getting deported, the Brazilian news outlet G1 reported on Monday.
According to G1, groups of migrants are acting as “sentries,” observing ICE’s movements and passing on the information in group chats to avoid detention and potential deportation. Similarly, migrants are skipping work and are not having their children go to school out of fear of being detained by immigration officials.
G1 spoke to one such Brazilian illegal migrant under condition of anonymity. The man, who claimed to reside in Florida and work in the construction industry, said that he has two children and fears being deported because of his lack of legal status in the country.
The man explained that he communicates with groups of migrants via the WhatsApp messaging platform, where they use real-time information about ICE raids to avoid them. The man further claimed, “There are days when the police play it down, there are days when it’s ‘bullshit.’”
“They [ICE] have already stopped in front of a condominium belonging to a friend of mine and picked up two or three people there,” The man said. “It’s really scaring us around here. Everyone is scared. There’s no way you can walk, it’s very complicated, very tense.”
“The fear is leaving the children behind. Who will the children stay with? There are few people we know. If I get caught, I can’t ask an American to pick me up,” he added.
André Simões, project manager at Boston’s Brazilian Worker Center, told G1 that the organization has been receiving “many calls” asking for help, including financial assistance, as individuals stop going to work out of fear of getting arrested. Simões observed that migrants are opting to stay at home as a “first protective measure” and WhatsApp is used to “trigger alerts” when migrants spot ICE agents in their area.
“The community uses WhatsApp a lot to communicate, so we know where there are groups of Brazilians who live nearby, who have entire condominiums and neighborhoods. And ICE, which is the immigration police, has been present there, so no one leaves their homes,” he highlighted.
A Brazilian teacher living in Massachusetts also spoke to G1 under condition of anonymity and claimed that the number of student absences had increased by 50 percent since President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
“They feel more free to talk to me because I’m an immigrant. So they often get there and say: ‘What if immigration comes here? If ICE comes here? If they stop me when I get off the school bus. Are you going to help me? What are you going to do? So we see the fear in the children’s eyes,” the teacher said.
“The number of absences is huge. Each teacher is responsible for marking the attendance of a few students. I’m responsible for a group. I receive a list on a clipboard inside the bus. Last week, for example, most of the immigrants were absent,” she asserted.
According to statistical data from the United States’ Department of Homeland Security, some 230,000 Brazilians were estimated to illegally reside in the United States as of 2022, making it the 8th largest group in DHS’s statistics at the time of its publication. In 2021, during the administration of former U.S. President Joe Biden, Border Patrol agents documented a staggering 114,000-percent increase in captures of Brazilian nationals at the U.S. southern border when compared to 2020, at a rate of more than 1,000 detentions per month.
As of early February, 199 Brazilians have reportedly been deported from the United States on deportation flights since the start of the administration of President Donald Trump. The first Brazil-bound U.S. deportation flight, which saw the arrival of 88 Brazilian deportees in late January, prompted a brief outrage from Brazilian government authorities, who accused the United States of engaging in “degrading treatment” of migrants due to the “indiscriminate” use of handcuffs and ankle restraints, as well as other “unacceptable” allegations claimed by some of the deportees.
The flight was originally scheduled to land in the Southeastern city of Belo Horizonte on Friday, January 24, but was forced to make a stopover in the northern city of Manaus after it encountered a technical issue. Upon arriving in Manaus, Brazilian authorities rejected the use of restraints in the deportees, leading to a disagreement with local authorities, who refused to allow the plane to continue its journey towards Belo Horizonte. Radical leftist President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had the deportees taken on a Brazilian Air Force plane to Belo Horizonte instead.
Days later, the Brazilian Foreign Ministry summoned the head of the U.S. embassy in Brasilia Gabriel Escobar to demand explanations on the use of restraints and urging their replacement with a more “dignified procedure.” Escobar reportedly promised to check into the conditions of the flight.
A second U.S. deportation flight departed from Alexandria, Louisiana, and arrived in the northeastern city of Fortaleza on Friday, February 7, after making a stopover in Puerto Rico. That flight carried a group of 111 Brazilian deportees, who reportedly had their restraints removed prior to disembarking from the plane.
G1 explained at the time that Fortaleza was purportedly chosen over Belo Horizonte as the city’s airport is one of the closest to U.S. territory, which reduced the amount of time the deportees flew over Brazilian territory in handcuffs.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
