NANTUCKET, MA — Since arriving in 2023, Lara Batista-Pereira had been a familiar face on Nantucket, working as a landscaper, babysitter, and dog-walker. The 31-year-old left her native Brazil seeking a better life, but her journey took a dramatic turn this spring when she was arrested in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation.
On May 27, 2025, Batista-Pereira was driving a landscaping truck on Miacomet Road when two unmarked vehicles pulled her over. She was handcuffed, shackled, and transferred—along with 11 others—to a detention center via U.S. Coast Guard boat Hammerhead. She was the only woman arrested on Nantucket during the ICE raid.
She is now being held at Karnes County Immigration Processing Center in Texas, far from the island where she had built a new life.
“She was part of the community and very loved,” said friend Karina Rashkov. “She had no criminal record. They were looking for someone else. She kept saying, ‘I’m not that person.’ But they took her anyway.”
Batista-Pereira’s father, Girlei, who still lives on Nantucket, said they came to the island together from Minas Gerais, Brazil, with hopes of finding stability and opportunity. “We were looking for a better life,” he said through an interpreter. “Now, I don’t know what will happen.”
On July 28, a bond hearing was held at San Antonio Immigration Court, where Judge Thomas Crossan denied the bond request. Citing a May 2025 Board of Immigration Appeals ruling known as the Matter of Q. Li, the judge explained that he had no jurisdiction to grant bond because Batista-Pereira was originally detained at the border without a warrant.
The ruling stems from the Immigration and Nationality Act, which mandates detention without bond for certain individuals apprehended shortly after illegal entry into the U.S.
Batista-Pereira was one of 1,461 people arrested across Massachusetts in May during Operation Patriot, a broad ICE enforcement action. Of those, 277 had been ordered removed by immigration judges and 790 had “significant criminality,” according to ICE Boston’s acting field office director Patricia Hyde.
However, friends and family maintain that Batista-Pereira has no criminal history and was simply caught in a collateral arrest, a term ICE uses for people not specifically targeted in an operation but detained incidentally.
“Sanctuary policies put us in a position to go into communities,” said Hyde at a June press conference. “When we find others unlawfully present, we will arrest them. We’ve been transparent about that.”
As Batista-Pereira remains in federal custody, her future in the United States is uncertain. Her case underscores the human toll of immigration enforcement and the complex legal landscape facing undocumented individuals who call American communities home.
