Nantucket father voices concerns about recent ICE arrests, undocumented migrants on the island
Erik Evans, who has lived on Nantucket for 31 years and has an 8-year-old daughter in its public schools, says the island is 'not what it once was.'
The Biden family arrived at Nantucket Island for their final presidential Thanksgiving on Tuesday despite a spate of migrant crimes that have plagued the vacation hot spot this year.
A small crowd watched as Air Force One touched down at Nantucket Memorial Airport just before 6 p.m., and a presidential motorcade whisked the first family away, the Nantucket Current reported.
The president's arrival created a bustling atmosphere during the typically quiet holiday week on the island. Hotels in the island's historic downtown district were fully booked with White House reporters and Secret Service personnel, the local outlet reported.
Nearly a dozen Massachusetts state troopers arrived with motorcycles via the Steamship Authority Ferry on Monday, and vehicles and equipment have been dropped off by a series of Air Force C-17's over the past three days. More than 200 turkey dinners will be cooked for Secret Service agents at Faregrounds Restaurant.
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President Biden, first lady Jill Biden and Ashley Biden leave Nantucket Bookworks after having lunch in Nantucket, Massachusetts, on Nov. 25, 2022. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
For the past three years, the Bidens have stayed at a property owned by private equity billionaire David Rubenstein that overlooks Nantucket Harbor, and their visit this year continues their 40-year tradition of spending the holiday on the island, the Current reported.
The Nantucket visit comes after a rash of illegal immigrants were picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials there earlier this fall.
Five migrants from Guatemala and El Salvador were picked up by ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations of Boston over a 48-hour period in September, Fox News Digital previously reported. Since August, the agency has arrested at least eight illegal immigrants accused of various criminal charges on Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard.
On Sept. 10, 28-year-old Salvadoran migrant Bryan Daniel Aldana-Arevalo was charged with one count of child rape with a 10-year age difference and two counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14.
Secret Service agents walk ahead of President Biden as he visits shops in the island's Downtown Historic District with relatives in Nantucket, Massachusetts, on Nov. 25, 2023. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
ERO Boston Field Office Director Todd Lyons said Aldana-Arevalo "represents a significant danger to the children of our Massachusetts communities" in a press release at the time of his arrest. Authorities said the victim was just 12 years old, the Current reported.
That day, Aldana-Arevalo and Elmer Sola, another Salvadoran migrant charged with 11 counts of sex crimes against a child, which Lyons said took place on Nantucket, were quietly taken to the mainland in handcuffs via ferry.
Sola was arraigned, charged and released with an ankle monitor Aug. 14 on the condition he stays away from the victim and the victim's family, according to the Current. However, nine days later, he returned to court after allegedly violating the pretrial conditions of his release.
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Enforcement and Removal Operations Boston apprehended an unlawfully present 28-year-old Salvadoran national, Bryan Daniel Aldana-Arevalo, and charged him with numerous sex crimes against a child on Nantucket Island. (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
On Sept. 11, agents returned to the iconic vacation site to arrest illegal Brazilian migrant Geon do Amaral Belafronte and Guatemalan illegal immigrant Felix Alberto Perez-Gomez. Both had committed sex crimes against Nantucket residents, Lyons said.
Belafronte entered the U.S. lawfully in 2018 but left of his own volition after the alleged assault took place in 2021. He re-entered the country illegally and was picked up on an arrest warrant in March. After his arraignment, Nantucket District Court released him on $500 cash bail or a $5,000 surety bond, according to court records and Boston ERO.
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ERO Boston on Thursday announced the Sept. 12 arrest of Angel Gabriel Deras-Mejia, a 30-year-old Salvadoran illegal immigrant and documented member of MS-13. (ICE ERO-Boston)
Reputed MS-13 gang member Angel Gabriel Deras-Mejia of El Salvador was taken into custody by the agency on the island on Sept. 12. Lyons said Deras-Mejia "represent[ed] a significant threat to the residents of Nantucket."
Deras-Mejia was arrested at the Discovery Playground on Old South Road in July. Nantucket Police wrote that he was "drunk and cursing, flaring his arms, yelling loudly and distracting all civilians who were at the scene" and left children at the scene crying. Allegedly, he and the mother of his child were arguing about who would take their child home, according to the Current. In August, he was arrested again for assault and battery on a household member.
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Elmer Sola is charged with 11 counts of sex crimes against a child — specifically, three counts of aggravated rape of a child and eight counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14. (ICE - ERO Boston)
Toby Brown, chair of the Nantucket GOP and a Nantucket resident for three decades, was among the few on the island who would openly voice concerns about illegal immigration in the wake of the arrests.
"We need to have this conversation and not just keep having this... idea that if you're somehow worried, you're a racist… people just need to not be afraid to speak up," Brown previously told Fox News Digital. "This island was more worried about when Kevin Spacey got charged back in 2016 [than the recent sex crimes allegedly perpetrated by illegal immigrants]," he said.
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Felix Alberto Perez-Gomez, a 41-year-old illegal immigrant from Guatemala, was charged with a sex crime against a Nantucket resident. (ICE - ERO Boston)
"[The ICE arrests were] not a surprise to us," Brown said. "When you follow the court reports in the last year or so, there have been quite a bit of violent arrests… maybe it was surprising ICE came out here, but not surprising that they had to come out here."
Brown said most immigrants on the idyllic island off the coast of Cape Cod are good and active community members, including those residing there illegally. Many of his friends and coworkers are immigrants, he said. However, many residents are still concerned about those who may be running from violent pasts in their home countries.
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"We owe it to our immigrants who have come here, whether they're legal or not," he said. "There's a lot of them that just want a better life. And they come here, and they're doing the best they can. They raise their children here, and they don't want this crime."
"They didn't come to Nantucket to live the way they did back in El Salvador or Mexico or wherever they came from," he added.
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