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A 34-year-old undocumented Brazilian mother was pulled over by federal immigration agents in Milford last week and has been transferred 1,500 miles away from her family.

Tatiane De Jesus Santos was driving with her 3- and 9-year-old daughters on July 29 when she was stopped by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Her husband and attorney say that it is unclear why she was detained; she has no criminal record.

“She was crying and crying, asking them, ‘Please do not take me. I have my daughters,’” recounted Eloa Celedon, her attorney, who spoke to De Jesus Santos. “The girls were also screaming because they’re witnessing mother being taken away — and, my opinion, kidnapped because they didn’t have a warrant.”

The Department of Homeland Security said De Jesus Santos overstayed her visa: she entered the country on a visa that allowed her to stay for six months, and she was still here six years later. De Jesus Santos’ husband said they moved to the United States from Brazil in 2018 — first to Orlando, Florida, then Massachusetts.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security says that De Jesus Santos has been placed into removal proceedings.

“As President Trump and Secretary [Kristi] Noem are committed to restoring integrity to the visa program and ensuring it is not abused to allow aliens a permanent one-way ticket to remain in the U.S.,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin wrote in an emailed statement.

The statement also included a message urging undocumented immigrants to self-deport.

“She has no criminal record. Yes, she’s out of status, but she’s not committed a crime,” said Celedon, noting that visa overstays are a civil infraction, not a criminal one.

The Trump administration initially vowed to detain and deport immigrants with criminal backgrounds. But just over half of the nearly 60,000 people currently detained by ICE have criminal charges or convictions, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data organization that uses public records requests to get information.

A Marlborough father with no criminal background was detained by ICE in a traffic stop, for instance, when agents were searching for someone else. A number of students have been detained in Massachusetts due to political speech, including Tufts Univerity PhD student Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish national on a student visa.

Wediney Gomes De Santana, De Jesus Santos’ husband, spoke in Brazilian Portuguese with GBH News through an interpreter. He said, after his wife was pulled over, an ICE agent called him from his daughter’s phone to tell him to pick up the car and the children.

But Gomes De Santana says he was afraid to since he had been recently been detained by ICE himself for more than two weeks. ICE agents drove the car over to the house. The agents then let themselves into the house to drop off the girls when he declined to come out.

Gomes De Santana said he apologized for refusing to come out of the house.

“I said, ‘Could you take me and leave the mother with our daughters? You can take me and let them be with their mother instead,’” he recalled.

But Gomes De Santana said the agent replied, “‘No, you already went. Now it’s her turn, we came to take her — not you. Take care of your daughters.’”

Throughout this exchange, Gomes De Santana says his wife was in their house, handcuffed. She was then taken to Burlington, Massachusetts, for processing and transferred to an ICE facility in New Jersey.

Gomes De Santana said he has spoken to his wife late at night because ICE staff have asked him to calm her down. He says she’s had many panic attacks in custody.

On Sunday, she was suddenly transferred to South Louisiana Processing Center. Celedon says she’s working on refiling legal paperwork, potentially for that jurisdiction, and scheduling a bail hearing.

The family is hoping she is released on bail while her immigration case continues. Celedon described the 3-year-old as having “night terrors” and waking up screaming.

Gomes De Santana said life is difficult without De Jesus Santos.

“My wife is an awesome person, she’s marvelous,” he said. “She is a super mom, she takes care of everything in the household.”