ICE Apprehends Four Illegal Aliens Suspected of Sex Crimes in Nantucket

FAIR Take | September 2024

Earlier this month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers arrested four illegal aliens suspected of sex crimes in Nantucket over the course of just two days. Two of the aliens were charged with committing heinous sex crimes against children. These recent arrests demonstrate how our border crisis is reaching into communities once considered immune from the impact of open borders.

On September 10, ICE arrested Bryan Daniel Aldana-Arevalo, a 28-year-old illegal alien from El Salvador. According to ICE, Aldana-Arevalo entered the country illegally as a gotaway. In July, Aldana-Arevalo was arrested by the Nantucket Police and charged with aggravated rape of a child with a 10-year age difference and two counts of assault and battery of a child under 14. He pleaded not guilty and was held on $20,000 bail. Three days later, however, he managed to post the bail and was released. After arresting him on immigration charges, ICE stated that Aldana-Arevalo “represents a significant danger to the children of our Massachusetts communities.” He is now in custody and has been served with a notice to appear (NTA) in immigration court.

The same day, ICE arrested Elmer Sola, a 49-year-old illegal alien from El Salvador. Like Aldana-Arevalo, Sola entered the country unlawfully as a gotaway. Sola was arraigned by the Nantucket Superior Court in August and is charged with 11 sex crimes against a child in Nantucket, including three for aggravated rape and eight for indecent assault and battery. He was released after posting just $5,000 bail on August 14 on the condition that he wear an ankle monitor and that he not contact the victim or her family. According to the local paper, within nine days, Sola violated the terms of his probation and was brought back to court. However there was no change to his bail status and he was not taken into custody. In its announcement, ICE’s Boston field office called the crimes “horrific and despicable” and pledged that it “will continue to prioritize the safety of our public by arresting and removing egregious noncitizen offenders.” Sola is now in ICE custody.

On September 11, ICE arrested two more illegal aliens suspected of sex crimes against Nantucket residents. First, officers arrested Gean Do Amaral Belafronte, an illegal alien from Brazil who illegally entered the U.S. in 2018 and voluntarily departed in 2021—just days after he allegedly threw a girl to the ground, pinned her down and threatened to rape her. Belafronte illegally reentered the U.S. and returned to Nantucket, where he was arrested in March and criminally charged for the 2021 assault, but was released on $500 bail. Belafronte is now in ICE custody awaiting a hearing before an immigration judge.

The same day, officers arrested Felix Alberto Perez-Gomez, a 41-year-old illegal alien from Guatemala, who re-entered the country as a gotaway after being deported in 2011. A female victim in Nantucket alleges that Perez-Gomez sexually assaulted her in a car in August. After the victim was able to identify the car, police quickly arrested Perez-Gomez. He was charged with indecent assault and battery on a person 14 years or older and was arraigned in state court, where he pled not guilty and was released on his own recognizance – without bail. Perez Gomez is now in ICE custody.

In response to these tragic crimes, many Nantucket residents are living in fear. According to one local construction worker, Erik Evans, Nantucket’s affluent population, particularly its demand for labor, has precipitated a spike in illegal immigration. While Evans praised ICE for acting to arrest the criminals, he added, “There’s obviously many, many more. And, as a community, it scares me. As a father, it truly scares me, and I would like to see more being done.” Another Nantucket resident in his 70s, who asked to remain anonymous, said, “I’ve lived here for 53 years – I’ve seen a large uptick in crime. I’ve never seen this kind of child abuse that I’ve seen in the last several years.” Toby Brown, the chair of the Nantucket GOP, argued: “I think many people are concerned about the violent illegal population…The biggest thing is obviously not knowing anybody’s history if they’re here illegally. The legal immigrants will even discuss that.”

What is particularly frustrating is that ICE has to go out into the communities to find and arrest these aliens on immigration charges. Massachusetts does not require local jurisdictions to cooperate with ICE in enforcing our immigration laws. In fact, in 2018 the state supreme court ruled that state law does not authorize local law enforcement to hold aliens accused of crimes when requested by ICE. Thus the local law enforcement agencies release them like they release other offenders. This not only puts public safety at risk, but it also requires ICE to go to great lengths, and risk the safety of its agents, to go into the field, find, and arrest these criminals. Massachusetts could reverse this by adopting new legislation, but state legislators have so far expressed no interest in taking action, regardless of the impact on the residents of the state.

Under the Biden-Harris Administration, there have been an estimated two million known gotaways – over 50 percent more than the number recorded for the previous ten years combined. Because the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not come into contact with these aliens and is unable to vet them, gotaways pose a grave threat to public safety and national security. And all four of those arrested entered as gotaways, evading Border Patrol agents to illegally cross. According to recently released data, ICE is now tracking 662,566 aliens with pending criminal charges or convictions, including 108,992 for assault, 20,712 for sexual assault, 15,272 for homicide, and 3,484 for kidnapping.

Unfortunately, these arrests are just the most recent in a long line of similar crimes tied to the Biden-Harris Administration’s open-borders, anti-enforcement agenda. Some other recent examples include:

• In June 2024, Jocelyn Nungaray, a 12-year-old girl from Texas, was brutally assaulted and murdered under a bridge by two men in Houston. Two illegal aliens from Venezuela, both of whom were released by the Biden-Harris Administration earlier this year, have been charged with her murder.
• In February 2024, Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student, was violently murdered while going for a run near the University of Georgia’s campus. Her alleged murderer is an illegal alien from Venezuela who was unlawfully paroled into the country by the Biden-Harris Administration in 2022.
• In August 2023, Rachel Morin, a 37-year-old mother of five, was horrifically raped and murdered while on a trail run in Harford County, Maryland. Her alleged murderer is an illegal alien from El Salvador who entered the country illegally at least four times and is a suspected gang member.

Members of Congress have also moved to pass meaningful legislation to help stop criminal aliens from inflicting more harm on Americans. In March 2024, the House of Representatives passed the Laken Riley Act, which FAIR supported, to require the detention of illegal aliens for theft-related crimes and provide state attorneys general with authority to sue the federal government for failing to enforce our immigration laws. In July, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) introduced the FAIR-supported Justice for Jocelyn Act to prohibit the release of illegal aliens on Alternatives to Detention (ATD) unless all detention beds are filled. The legislation also requires that ICE places all released aliens on ATD with mandatory GPS tracking until their cases have been adjudicated or they are removed from the country.

Starting day one, the Biden-Harris Administration has thrown open our borders and allowed dangerous criminal aliens to enter in record numbers. As a result, these aliens are settling in our communities and Americans are being forced to suffer the consequences in horrific ways. Without real policy changes to ensure secure borders and bolstered interior enforcement, criminal aliens will continue to wreak havoc across the country.