An undocumented 28-year-old from Brazil was recently detained while working at an Acton pizzeria.
Lucas Ribeiro Dos Passos was arrested Sorrento’s Pizzeria around lunchtime on August 1, witnessed by multiple customers at the popular locale.
His attorney Eloa Celedon said Ribeiro Dos Passos entered the United States by foot in 2023 and has no criminal record in the United States or Brazil. He has a pending asylum case.
Immigration enforcement officials told GBH News he was detained because Ribeiro Dos Passos was previously charged with driving with a suspended license. His attorney says his license is currently in good standing.
Local schoolteacher Tracy Hodsdon was picking up lunch during a break from setting up her classroom in Acton. She was by a cooler looking for a drink when she noticed several agents wearing masks. She realized they were from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and immediately went to her car to get her phone.
She snapped a few pictures of several masked agents and tried to go to the cash register.
“The guy [agent] kind of pushed me out of the way and said, ‘We’re doing business here, and you need to step back.’ I was kind of chirping behind them and saying, ‘This is illegal,’ because he kept saying like he wanted the people from out back to come out,” Hodsdon said.
Without a judicial warrant, immigration enforcement agents can only go into public spaces within a business. That can be to give the business owner a three-day notice of an audit to verify employees’ authorization to work in the United States.
Hodsdon added that several employees were in the back area, with only one out front, and she asked if the agents had a warrant.
“They just kept saying, ‘None of your business,’” she recounted.
About 10 minutes later, she says, Ribeiro Dos Passos came out, asked to grab his phone, and after he was allowed to do that, was arrested.
“He just looked really scared, but he was calm,” she said. “To be honest, at that point I was shaking. It was so scary and I was just saying, ‘This is unbelievable, we live in the United States.’”
In a call to Sorrento’s Pizzeria, an employee said a manager wasn’t available to speak to media.
“It is extremely alarming that federal agents are detaining people at their workplace,” said state Sen. Jamie Eldridge, who represents the area. Witnesses and constituents reached out to Eldridge and local state Rep. Danillo Sena, who knows Ribeiro Dos Passos’ father.
Sena said he connected the family to their attorney, Celedon.
“As an immigrant myself, I put myself in his shoes and you try to work and you try to earn a living. ... He shouldn’t be going through what has happened,” he said.
Sena said Ribeiro Dos Passos had been working at the pizzeria for more than two years.
The state lawmaker pointed out that the ICE agents were masked, as they have been in many recent encounters across the country.Sena’s co-sponsoring legislation that would ban law enforcement from fully covering their faces in Massachusetts and require that they disclose their identities.
“It’s certainly something so wrong that it really shouldn’t be happening,” he said.
The Department of Homeland Security has previously defended the use of masks, saying that they protect law enforcement officials who have been targeted online.
Celedon said his family was alarmed by the arrest and are seeking to get him bonded out.
Ribeiro Dos Passos is currently detained at Plymouth County Correctional facility, according the ICE detainee locator.
“They were after him because of an alleged driver’s license that was suspended. We looked it up and he does not have a suspended license. It must have been old information, and that’s very common with agents,” said Celedon.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson wrote that Ribeiro Dos Passos was detained “as part of a targeted enforcement operation, and that officers arrested him at his last known address.”
“This illegal alien previously faced charges for driving on a suspended license in Massachusetts,” the department said in a statement, adding that he will remain in ICE custody pending an immigration court hearing.
The department urged anyone in the country illegally to self-deport.
