Her 13-year-old son was arrested, then taken by ICE to a detention facility. The police chief calls it a first for his city
WCVB, X, @DHSGOV, CNN, X/@DHSGov
By Andy Rose, Alessandra Freitas, CNN
(CNN) — Any mother adores getting phone calls from her children. For Josiele Berto, they are now a lifeline and the only way to know where her 13-year-old son is and what he’s facing alone.
“I only talk to him – never to any official who could explain what kind of place it is or what’s happening,” Berto told CNN, speaking in Portuguese.
Last Thursday, she was called by police in Everett, Massachusetts, a Boston suburb, who said her son Arthur had been arrested. She was told she needed to pick him up.
But Berto left the police station without Arthur that night.
After waiting in the station for more than an hour, an officer informed her Immigration and Customs Enforcement had already taken him away.
“They didn’t give me any information,” said Berto, who is from Brazil and along with her family have had a pending asylum application since arriving in the United States in 2021. “I asked where he was being taken, and they said they weren’t allowed to say.”
Berto and her attorney, Andrew Lattarulo, both told CNN they spent days waiting to learn what led to the arrest – information that finally came Tuesday afternoon.
Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria said in a news conference a teenage boy – whom he declined to name because he is a juvenile – was arrested last week after Everett Police received a “credible tip” accusing him of making “a violent threat against another boy within our public school.”
DeMaria said police did not contact ICE about the juvenile’s arrest and is not targeting immigrants in the city, which he said has a sizable undocumented population. But he was vague about how federal authorities came to know about the case and take the teen away within hours.
“ICE operates independently and has the authority to access certain law enforcement databases and take action on its own accord,” DeMaria said.
Lattarulo said Tuesday night he was still trying to obtain the police report.
“To the best of my knowledge, (this is) the first time a juvenile has been taken (by ICE from the Everett Police Department),” Police Chief Paul Strong said in the news conference.
Now, Berto’s case is drawing local outrage and nationwide attention, as a Department of Homeland Security official publicized it with a claim that is contradicted by local police.
A judge ordered ICE to explain boy’s detention
After learning her son was detained by ICE, Berto’s immigration attorneys took the case to federal court, and a judge in Massachusetts ordered the government to either explain by Tuesday night why Arthur’s detention is justified or give him the opportunity to be released on bond.
It was not clear Wednesday afternoon whether that explanation had been filed by the deadline. A judge agreed to allow the filing under seal, but the court document was not listed on the online case docket, and Lattarulo told CNN he had not seen it as of Tuesday night.
“Detention violates his right to due process under the Fifth Amendment,” said a habeas corpus petition filed Friday on Arthur’s case.
The US Attorney’s Office declined to comment on the case.
Berto initially only learned about her son’s whereabouts through his phone calls. He has called her from two different immigration facilities, one in Massachusetts and another one in Virginia.
“He cried a lot because he had never been away from home or his family,” said Berto. “He was desperate, saying ICE had taken him.”
Berto told CNN Arthur had been home from school recently because he broke his foot and still needed to wear a walking boot after having a cast removed. On Thursday afternoon, he told his aunt he was going to take the bus to a friend’s house. It was at a nearby bus stop, he told his mother, that he was arrested.
The first details came not from a prosecutor, but from a post on X by the top spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, responding to media requests about the case.
“Here are the facts: he posed a public safety threat with an extensive rap sheet including violent assault with a dangerous weapon, battery, breaking and entering, destruction of property,” Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin posted. “He was in possession of a firearm and 5-7 inch knife when arrested.”
McLaughlin did not share further details about the allegations. Although Mayor DeMaria confirmed the presence of the knife and said there “could have been a tragedy in our schools” without the arrest, he was adamant the teen did not have a firearm.
“No guns were found,” DeMaria said.
Because he is a juvenile, Arthur’s criminal record is not public.
Police declined Tuesday to give specifics on the nature of the threat or say which school was involved.
DHS did not respond Tuesday evening to CNN’s request for comment on the discrepancy between the statements by McLaughlin and DeMaria over whether the child had a gun.
Berto, who told CNN she was shocked by the allegations, declined to comment on any criminal history and directed questions on the matter to her attorney. When asked about McLaughlin’s comments that Arthur had a “rap sheet,” Lattarulo did not address it in a statement to CNN.
“Regardless of the nature of the allegations, they remain just that – allegations – and every individual is entitled to due process of law,” Lattarulo said in a statement following McLaughlin’s post. “That principle applies even more strongly to a minor who is far below the age of legal consent.”
“DHS commenting publicly about a juvenile’s allegations is improper. They seem to forget he’s 13 and not 31,” Lattarulo added.
A spokesperson for ICE declined on Monday to speak about the case and referred CNN to McLaughlin’s statement.
ICE detainees get moved from state to state
Lattarulo criticized Arthur’s transfer to an out-of-state facility, saying it “raises serious concerns about access to counsel and the government’s intent to hinder effective legal representation.”
The attorney’s only contact with federal officials about the case was from a Trump administration attorney who reached out on Sunday, asking if they would be willing to have their case moved from Massachusetts to Virginia since Berto is now held there.
Lattarulo said he declined to agree to a change of venue, but Judge Richard Stearns ordered the case moved to a court in Virginia on Wednesday.
Stearns said his Massachusetts courtroom was not the proper place to consider the petition since Arthur was taken out of the state one hour before the case was filed. He added the teenager deserves a “prompt bond hearing” an under an existing legal agreement concerning immigration cases involving minors known as the Flores settlement.
“Consequently, the court agrees with respondents that it lacks jurisdiction over the merits of the petition,” said Stearns.
The shell game of ICE transferring people in custody to different states without notice to their families or attorneys is a familiar one.
Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University graduate who organized pro-Palestinian protests on campus and one of the first high-profile detainees of President Donald Trump’s second term, was arrested in New York and detained briefly in New Jersey before being moved more than a thousand miles away to a facility in Louisiana. He remained there for more than 100 days before a federal judge ordered him to be released on bail.
Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University, ended up in Texas after a meandering journey through holding facilities in Virginia and Louisiana.
He was released in May after another federal judge said the administration had failed to provide any evidence that Khan Suri’s detention was necessary.
But Khalil, Khan Suri and similar cases this year have something else in common: They are adults.
“This is my first child case,” Lattarulo told CNN. “This is the youngest one I’ve ever done.”
Dozens of community members showed up to an Everett City Council meeting Tuesday night calling for Arthur’s release, CNN affiliate WCVB reported.
“Arthur must be returned home, now!” said local high school teacher Jessica Gold Boots. “Not next week. It must happen now.”
One member of the council called for a retraction to McLaughlin’s disputed statement that the child had a gun.
“Issue a formal correction to the misinformation spread online,” Everett City Councilor Katy Rogers said.
Other relatives are worried about being detained
Without direct access to his parents or attorneys, Berto isn’t certain about Arthur’s well-being. It’s a concern she says also weighs on her 10-year-old son.
“My younger son keeps asking about him — if he’s called, if I know anything. It’s been really hard,” she said.
They also have concerns about their own future.
“Since our asylum process is still pending, we were already afraid, and now the fear has grown,” Berto said. “We don’t know if they’ll come for us next.”
But whether Arthur’s case will ultimately result in his family going back to Brazil – voluntarily or not – is now one of many unanswered questions they face as Berto waits for her phone to ring again, hoping the next call will be her son.
“Right now, I just want my son free,” she said. “We’ll think about the rest later.”
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