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ICE Arrests Woman After Fiance Called 911 Believing She Was Having a Mental Health Crisis
A woman in Massachusetts was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after her fiancé called 911 to get her help for a mental health crisis.
After a recent miscarriage that required surgery and left her with a serious infection, Iara do Carmo Santana was struggling with her mental health. Following an argument with her fiancé, Gabriel Lemos, he called 911 for help on September 4, believing that she was a threat to herself.
However, police simply placed her under arrest for domestic violence, according to The Boston Globe, accusing her of pushing Lemos and hitting him with a hair straightener.
Hours later, she was released from jail, but ICE was reportedly waiting for her immediately upon her release, thanks to a shared FBI database that is updated when someone is arrested and fingerprinted.
Do Carmo Santana, 29, reportedly immigrated from Brazil by way of the southern border. She was arrested by Border Patrol in 2021 and released. At the time, she applied for asylum and has an immigration court date scheduled for 2029. The Boston Globe reports that she received employment authorization and has been working as a house cleaner. Regardless, ICE agents took her into custody and brought her to their facility in Burlington.
She told The Boston Globe that she informed ICE immediately that she was recovering from surgery and had an infection. However, she says that she still got little to no medical care. Additionally, she said she often went hungry and that they provided her with no Portuguese translator to help her communicate with the agents at the facility.
WBUR reports that the Burlington facility has been criticized in the past for poor conditions for its detainees. The outlet reports complaints that detainees were not granted access to running water, making it so that they couldn’t shower or wash their hands after using the bathroom. Additionally, they have said that people there are forced to sleep without any bedding on concrete floors. There are also complaints of scarce food and a lack of medical care.
Do Carmo Santana was released from ICE custody by order of a judge after 4 days.
