About six months after being picked up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 27-year-old Thiago Bastos of Hyannis is still in federal prison in New Hampshire. This follows multiple orders from a judge for Bastos to appear in court in Orleans.
That's according to Tyler Jager of the Provincetown Independent.
CAI’s Gilda Geist spoke with Tyler recently to learn more about Bastos's case.
Gilda Geist Can you remind us who Bastos is and the circumstances of his arrest back in May?
Tyler Jager Thiago Bastos is a 27-year-old carpenter who lives in Hyannis and has lived in Massachusetts since he was 11 years old. He was arrested by plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the parking lot outside of the courthouse in Orleans. He was there to attend a hearing related to a May 10 traffic stop and later May 12 arrest on charges of operating under the influence and two other misdemeanors, and a marked lanes violation. But he was unable to complete future hearings related to that pretrial process because he's been in detention in New Hampshire at a federal prison ever since.
GG Bastos was supposed to have a hearing at Orleans District Court in November. What happened?
TJ That hearing [was] related to his outstanding motor vehicle charges in Orleans. The judge in the court, Judge Welsh, issued a writ of habeas corpus to this federal prison in New Hampshire where he has been detained to make Bastos available to appear in court, either by video conference or in person. When the hearing commenced, it immediately became clear that that was not going to happen at the November hearing. Bastos was not made available by ICE or by the Federal Bureau of Prisons at the New Hampshire facility, so the hearing did not proceed. It sort of ended inconclusively. The judge issued another writ of habeas corpus for Bastos to appear in court and, for the first time, an arrest warrant as well, in his latest attempt to compel ICE to allow the defendant to appear.
GG What did legal experts who you spoke to for this story have to say about this whole situation?
TJ I did speak to Jennifer Klein, who is the director of the Immigration Impact Unit of the Committee for Public Counsel Services—that's the agency responsible for the Massachusetts public defender system—and Klein referred me to an affidavit that she recently submitted about the commonality of the cases that are like Thiago Bastos's in the Commonwealth since January of this year. Her unit has recorded at least 30 cases where non-citizen defendants in the state have had warrants issued or cases left open after they've been taken into ICE custody, leaving those cases inconclusive. Klein also said this is an increasingly difficult issue for individuals who are taken out of state and put into ICE custody. As ICE ramps up its activities in New England, it is looking for additional beds, so that's becoming more common, where defendants are being taken out of state and their lawyers have much more difficulty trying to get them to appear.
GG Protesters showed up to the courthouse on the day of the hearing in November. What were they doing there?
TJ A group of about 40 protesters were outside the courthouse at this 9 AM hearing in November, and they were there to demonstrate against Bastos's prolonged detention, but also the due process concerns that they raised about his case going forward in his absence. His defense attorney has argued that if the Commonwealth took this case forward or delayed it indefinitely, they would be depriving the defendant of his due process rights and his rights to a speedy trial. The demonstrators were holding signs and protesting in that spirit. They were organized by a couple local groups related to immigrant rights networks and a humanitarian committee of the First Parish Brewster Unitarian Universalist Church.
For more information, check out Tyler’s full story in the Provincetown Independent.
