NANTUCKET, Mass. – Local parents fear for their kids’ safety after federal agents nabbed five illegal immigrants, including a member of the notorious gang MS-13, for alleged crimes that include sexual assault of children on this picturesque island.
Erik Evans, who has lived on the Massachusetts island off Cape Cod for 31 years and has an 8-year-old daughter, told Fox News Digital the arrests earlier this month by Immigration and Customs Enforcement underscore how the town has changed in recent years.
The surging migrant population that largely serves the summer crowd remains when the weather turns cold, and a handful have allegedly committed crimes rarely seen here.
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“How are these past five people that have gotten arrested that are rapists and [violent criminals] working here and walking through our grocery store and passing by us at the gas station? It just … it’s not what Nantucket once was,” Evans said.
“I’m very happy that ICE was here and was able to do their job and get rid of at least some of the bad people that are on the island. 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.”
Evans, a construction worker, said the island’s wealthy seasonal residents who want “everything done yesterday” have attracted an influx of illegal migrants.
Tommy Hilfiger, former Secretary of State John Kerry, actor Ben Stiller and actress Kathie Lee Gifford are among the rich and powerful who own homes on the idyllic island with a population of about 14,000.
“They can cut wood or they can bang nails,” Evans said. “And, you know, I wonder who’s hiring these people. Do they do background checks on them?”
On Sept. 10, 28-year-old Salvadoran migrant Bryan Daniel Aldana-Arevalo was charged with one count of child rape with a 10-year age difference and two counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14.
ERO Boston Field Office Director Todd Lyons said Aldana-Arevalo “represents a significant danger to the children of our Massachusetts communities” in a press release at the time of his arrest. His alleged victim was just 12 years old, the Nantucket Current reported.
That day, Aldana-Arevalo and Elmer Sola, another Salvadoran migrant charged with 11 counts of sex crimes against a child, which Lyons said took place in Nantucket, were quietly taken to the mainland in handcuffs via ferry.
Sola was arraigned, charged and released with an ankle monitor Aug. 14 on the condition he stay away from the victim and the victim’s family, according to the Nantucket Current. But, nine days later, he returned to court after allegedly violating the pretrial conditions of his release.
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On Sept. 11, agents returned to the iconic vacation site to arrest illegal Brazilian migrant Geon do Amaral Belafronte and Guatemalan illegal immigrant Felix Alberto Perez-Gomez. Both had committed sex crimes against Nantucket residents, Lyons said.
Belafronte entered the U.S. lawfully in 2018 but left of his own volition after the alleged assault took place in 2021. He reentered the country illegally and was picked up on an arrest warrant in March. After his arraignment, Nantucket District Court released him on $500 cash bail or a $5,000 surety bond, according to court records and Boston ERO.
According to a police report reviewed by the Nantucket Current, Belafronte pinned his alleged victim to the ground with her hands over her head and said “I will rape you” as he licked her lips with his tongue while she kept her mouth closed.
Reputed MS-13 gang member Angel Gabriel Deras-Mejia of El Salvador was taken into custody by the agency on the island Sept. 12. Lyon said Deras-Mejia “represent[ed] a significant threat to the residents of Nantucket.”
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Deras-Mejia was arrested at the Discovery Playground on Old South Road in July. Nantucket Police wrote that he was “drunk and cursing, flaring his arms, yelling loudly and distracting all civilians who were at the scene” and left children at the scene crying. Allegedly, he and the mother of his child were arguing about who would take their child home, according to the Nantucket Current. In August, he was arrested again for assault and battery on a household member.
Another Nantucket father, who asked not to be named, noted that one of the gang member’s arrests took place right beside his daughter’s preschool.
“It’s a little scary, knowing there are people like that living here,” the father said outside The Muse, a watering hole frequented by locals. “The reaction from some people is that ‘[Immigrants here] are scared [after the ICE arrests].’ Well, I have kids, and I think it’s scary these people are living here.”
A 39-year-old woman who has lived in Nantucket since she was 4 years old and has a daughter enrolled at Nantucket Intermediate School, told Fox News Digital the particulars of the illegal migrants’ crimes – and the reactions of her neighbors and friends to the ICE raid — were disquieting.
“On Facebook, the [local newspaper] is covering it a lot. They’ll post it, and nobody will say anything,” she said. “I feel like people are scared to say, you know, like, ‘Good for [ICE]. Glad this is happening.’ You know, it’s crickets.”
“Of course I do,” Evans said when asked whether he had had concerns about his child’s safety in the community after the arrests.
“My daughter goes to school, and after school, she goes over to the Boys and Girls Club. But, I mean, they walk there. … And the number of kids, there’s never enough chaperones or people that can really keep an eye on all of these kids,” he said.
Evans told Fox News Digital there are “Ring doorbell cameras everywhere” these days on Nantucket and that a number of “big-time alarm system companies” have cropped up on the island in recent years.
“Our local paper comes out every Thursday. And the crime report … is dramatically much larger in the past few years than what it used to be,” he said. “There’s always at least 15 to 20 different people that are in the court report, and those episodes stem anywhere from a lot of drunk driving, OUI arrests, [and] many home invasions. Domestic abuse drugs.
“Obviously, you know, we’re not really sure where there is a safe place anymore.”
Before this month, immigration officials had not come to the island to carry out arrests since 2017, Boston ERO told Fox News Digital.
“I never foresaw what we have now,” Evans said. “And it’s only going to get worse before it gets better.”
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