Brazilian influencer who defended US immigration crackdown arrested by ICE | US news
A right-wing Brazilian influencer who claimed Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown targeted only “scammers” was arrested by ICE agents in New Jersey.
Júnior Pena, whose full name is Eustáquio da Silva Pena Júnior, recently announced his support for the US president in a video message he sent to hundreds of thousands of social media followers.
“I [support] Donald Trump – I love this man,” announced the South American TikToker and Instagrammer. bill It purports to show the “reality of the United States” from an immigrant’s perspective.
In a previous video, Pena reportedly urged Brazilians to remain calm and not “despair” following reports that ICE agents were rounding up immigrants, including Brazilians. “But they’re all scammers. Most of them.” falsely claimed One of the captured immigrants.
On Saturday, Pena himself was reportedly taken into custody and sent to the Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark, New Jersey. a friend he told the local newspaper The Brazilian Times reported that Pena was detained after missing the hearing. The detainee’s attorney, Andrew Lattarulo, reportedly tried to resolve the situation and prevent his transfer to another state.
The Brazilian phenomenon has reportedly been living in the United States since 2009 and hails from Belo Horizonte, the capital of the state of Minas Gerais, long known as an exporter of immigrants to the United States and Europe.
Pena uses his social networks to echo the stories of immigrants, as well as voices critical of Brazil’s leftist president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and those who support former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who was recently jailed and is a Trump ally.
The US’s estimated 2 million-strong Brazilian community has been hit hard by Trump’s anti-immigrant offensive; The number of Brazilians deported reached a record high of 2,785 last year, compared to 1,640 in 2024.
Brazilian magazine Veja said in a recent report on the “real manhunt” under the Trump administration. warned readers: “There is an atmosphere of fear on the streets where anyone who ‘looks foreign’ can be a target… [immigration] situation.”
Brazilian immigrants in cities like Boston have adopted harsh “survival tactics,” including not speaking Portuguese in public and trying to dress like “average Americans” when leaving their homes, the magazine said.
After news of his detention went viral, left-wing Brazilians flocked to Pena’s Instagram account to mock him. “You supported Trump and ended up suffering the consequences,” one wrote. A second reviewer commented, “What goes around, goes around.”
The influencer’s friends posted messages asking her followers to pray.
