Federal immigration raids have spread to New England’s summer island getaway destinations, with 40 people detained on Tuesday by agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency and the FBI.
ICE states in a press release that the raids occurred on the islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.
The Nantucket Current reports that the action by federal authorities appears to be the largest immigration enforcement operation on the island in years.
Federal agents pulled over multiple vehicles across the mid-island area beginning around 7 a.m., with at least a dozen people taken into custody.
It is also not known whether this was a random sweep or if the arrests targeted known criminal suspects.
Detainees were then removed from the island aboard the Coast Guard patrol boat Hammerhead around 1:30 p.m.
“ICE officers and FBI, DEA and ATF agents worked together to arrest a significant number of illegal alien offenders which included at least one child predator,” said ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Boston acting Field Office Director Patricia H. Hyde.
“Our partners in the U.S. Coast Guard facilitated a safe and efficient transport of the alien offenders off Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, ensuring the safety of the residents of those communities. ICE and our federal partners made a strong stand for prioritizing public safety by arresting and removing illegal aliens from our New England neighborhoods.”
Nantucket Police Lieutenant Angus MacVicar stated that they were notified on Monday by ICE regarding the timing of the operation.
“We were not asked to support their operation in any way [nor] have we assisted today,” he said.
The Current reports that a woman was left behind in the passenger seat of a Toyota 4Runner after federal agents pulled it over and took two men into custody on Old South Road, which runs near the island’s airport.
In addition, on Fairgrounds Road, island resident Mason Kennelly was pulled over by ICE agents who questioned him before saying they “had the wrong guy.”
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem reportedly demanded that immigration agents significantly increase daily arrests to 3,000 in a “tense” meeting last week.
Miller, President Donald Trump’s top adviser and architect of the administration’s aggressive immigration policies, and Noem told agents they needed to up daily arrests and deportations during the meeting at Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. on May 21, according to Axios.
The figure is approximately triple the number of daily arrests that ICE agents were making at the beginning of the Trump administration, the outlet noted. The administration deported 17,000 people in April, according to ICE, which is a 29 percent increase over April 2024, according to NBC News.
The ICE sweep comes at the start of the peak tourism season. As a popular — and expensive — destination, Nantucket’s population swells to 80,000 during summer months.
Following his election defeat in November 2024, President Joe Biden and his family spent Thanksgiving on the island.
Martha’s Vineyard similarly sees its population swell from 20,000 to over 200,000 in the summer. Famous regular visitors include the Clintons, the Obamas, Trump lawyer Alan Dershowitz, and numerous Hollywood and media figures.
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