A 51-year-old mother of two was driving home to Massachusetts on May 26 after a day of work when police pulled her over in Troy, N.H., for an alleged traffic violation.
The woman, who is originally from Brazil, has lived in the U.S. for five years, but does not have legal immigration status, according to court documents.
Troy police turned her over to ICE, and she was held for the next five weeks in the Strafford County jail in Dover, N.H., until an immigration judge ordered that she be released on bond.
Her attorney, Gabriela Cerretani of the Georges Cote Law firm in Chelsea, Mass., agreed to discuss the case on condition that her client’s name not be used. Immigration removal proceedings are pending.
Cerretani paraphrased the woman’s comments about her experience, which were made in Portuguese.
“She describes a heavy toll on her family — the cost of securing her release, rent and car payments that kept coming due, a month unable to work, and time separated from her children — and credits her lawyers, her children, the help of friends, prayers, and God for her freedom,” Cerretani said in an email Monday.
The attorney said the woman, whose two children are U.S. citizens, was born in Conselheiro Pena, a city in Minas Gerais, a large inland state in southeastern Brazil.
Crossing the border
Legal filings in U.S. District Court in Concord indicate the woman entered the U.S. “without inspection,” meaning she crossed the border without presenting valid documents to an immigration officer.
Cerretani said a Customs and Border Protection officer encountered the woman near San Luis, Ariz., in March 2021 “shortly after crossing the border,” gave her paperwork to appear in immigration court and then released her.
“In March 2023, (the woman) appeared before the Immigration Court as ordered, however, an immigration judge in Boston deemed her case a ‘Failure to Prosecute’ — meaning the government did not move its case forward, so it was terminated with no ruling against her and no status granted,” Cerretani said.
This was during the Biden administration, when there was a record surge in immigration, both legal and illegal.
Mass deportations followed in 2025 after Donald Trump took over as president.
Troy arrests
The woman Cerretani represents is one of about two-dozen people the Troy Police Department, as of last month, had detained since last year and handed over to federal custody under a 287(g) agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Troy department is the only agency in Cheshire County with such a pact, named for a section of immigration law.
Most of these arrests came after alleged traffic violations, including speeding, on busy Route 12 in Troy, where the legal limit drops from 50 mph to 30 mph.
Cerretani said her client was driving home on a Tuesday afternoon when she was pulled over in Troy. The police report said she crossed over the center line while traveling south on that route.
Two Troy officers drove the woman and her passenger to the Strafford County correctional facility after verifying with ICE that neither had a legal right to be in the country, the report said.
Conflicting accounts
The woman had a different account.
“She says there was no traffic infraction: the officer claimed she had been using her phone, but it was her passenger — a friend riding with her — who was on the phone, not her,” Cerretani said.
“The traffic ‘violation’ wasn’t the point; it was the officers’ way in. That’s how this works: the stop is the pretext, and once you’re pulled over, the inquiry quietly shifts from how you were driving to who you are and whether or not you have permission to be in this country.”
Cerretani said that in her experience, when ICE “can’t find the ‘dangerous criminals’ it says it’s after, it doesn’t go home empty-handed. It lowers the bar until everyone becomes a target.”
For his part, Troy Police Chief David Ellis says drivers are stopped only for legitimate traffic infractions.
He noted in a July 20 interview that with a couple of exceptions, the arrests have been of people with immigration violations, not serious criminal offenses.
“We’ve only had two that were real criminals,” Ellis said. “One guy was wanted out of the Bronx for second-degree armed robbery, two second-degree assaults and had two restraining orders on him.
“I wish I could get one of them every day.”
Most of the others were taken into custody for immigration problems like an expired visa, according to Ellis. He said some of those arrested told him they were afraid to seek a visa extension because they thought if they did so they would be deported.
According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a nonprofit that tracks immigration statistics, as of July 11, 70.6% of current immigration detainees have no criminal conviction, and many of those convicted committed only minor offenses.
‘I wish it could be different’
Ellis said he treats everybody he pulls over with respect and isn’t afraid that one of his immigration arrests will escalate into violence. He notes that immigration enforcement is just a small part of what his department does.
“In 2025, we made 333 stops, with only 13 being illegal migrants,” he said. “We stop a lot of cars. Sometimes it can be quiet in this small town, but sometimes we can be right out straight with calls.”
He said last month that his department’s cooperation with ICE could lead to it receiving $100,000 in federal money to be spent on new police vehicles. He said he’s planning to apply for the grant, but hasn’t gotten around to it yet.
Ellis said his immigration arrests had been without incident, except one on June 23 in which two people ran. One was quickly taken into custody, and the other was arrested after running into the woods and being found by a police dog, he added.
“They were scared; they ran,” Ellis said. “They didn’t do anything toward us. Somebody runs from me, I’m not going to shoot ‘em.”
Ellis said he empathizes with the immigrants he arrests.
“I’m sure a lot of them don’t want to come back to the country they came from. They came here because they wanted to get away from that country,” he said.
“I’m human. They are human beings. I wish it could be different for them, but there is a process to go through to be citizens here.”
Behind bars
Cerretani’s client was held in the Strafford County jail from May 26 to June 30, the attorney said.
“She says she was treated the same as other detainees and was not mistreated; her main complaint was the water, which was only from the tap, was dispensed in very small amounts by a machine, and could not always be bought.”
The day after she was brought to the facility, an attorney for the woman filed a petition in the federal court in Concord for a writ of habeas corpus. This is a legal procedure that allows people detained by the government to challenge their detention.
Arguments in the petition included that she has no criminal convictions that would subject her to mandatory detention. It requested that she be released or granted a bond hearing.
Habeas Dockets, a nonprofit that tracks immigration litigation, says on its website that there are currently more than 50,000 active immigration-related habeas cases nationally, including 277 in New Hampshire.
On July 18, Concord-based Chief Federal District Court Judge Samantha Elliott ordered that Cerretani’s client be given a bond hearing by an immigration judge “as soon as practicable.”
The woman was given the hearing on June 30 and was released on $5,000 bond.
Theory of the case
Cerretani said it’s wrong for the federal government to arrest non-criminals and hold them until a habeas petition frees them.
“Though this concept is highly debated, the fact of the matter is, being in the country unlawfully is a civil matter, not a crime,” she said. “Having no criminal record is the norm for most of the people being detained.
“We are locking people up who are a danger to no one, then telling them the way out is to file litigation in federal court — often with no lawyer, no right to an appointed one, and sometimes after they’ve already been moved hundreds of miles or put on a plane.”
Cerretani said that in federal court in New Hampshire, judges usually rule people like her client are entitled to a bond hearing.
“When the judges closest to these cases keep ruling against the government, the problem isn’t activist courts. It’s an enforcement strategy that can’t be reconciled with due process,” she said.
Ryan Sullivan, another Massachusetts immigration attorney, agreed that the release of immigration arrestees without a criminal record has become routine.
“The only thing stopping you from being released is whether you have a lawyer that’s going to hold the government accountable,” he said.
And, he added, it’s “thinly veiled racism” when police concentrate on checking the immigration status of minorities.
“I’m not getting calls from people with names like Seamus O’Brien who are being held in ICE custody,” Sullivan said.
In fact, Ellis, the Troy police chief, said in an interview in December that he stopped a truck driver from Ukraine who had a commercial driver’s license but did not have legal immigration status.
He said that when he called ICE, they told him they “weren’t going to send him back to Ukraine” and to let him go. Ellis said he was surprised and a bit frustrated by that response, but did as he was told.
Last October, Sullivan filed a habeas petition in federal court in Concord for Juan Carlos Malan Quizhpi, who said he was driving to a construction job when Ellis stopped him on a speeding allegation, took him to Manchester and handed him over to ICE.
The 26-year-old then spent 15 days in Strafford County jail before he was released through court proceedings. He had come to the U.S. after fleeing persecution in Ecuador six years earlier and was trying to work his way through the immigration process, according to legal filings.
Local leader
The 287(g) agreement between the Troy Police Department and ICE that paved the way for such arrests didn’t come before the Troy Selectboard. The chief signed the pact under his own authority.
But Dick Thackston, a member of that board and a Republican state representative, stressed in a July 20 interview that he supports the enforcement of immigration laws and that the agreement has not been a drain on local resources.
He blamed high-profile cases of deadly violence involving ICE officers on the people killed.
“Violence begets violence,” he said. “Instead of trying to run away or maybe drive over the police officer, stop, be compliant, and if that were the case, I think all of these issues where people were really killed or hurt would not have happened.”
The New York Times reported last month that at least 23 people have been shot at by federal immigration agents since last year, and six of those people have died, including three U.S. citizens.
Some victims’ rights advocates have criticized ICE for not de-escalating situations before they became violent.
Troy protesters
Every Friday afternoon, people gather in Troy to protest the police department’s agreement with ICE.
They carry signs with sayings such as “Immigrants Make America Great,” “Hate Has Never Made America Great” and “Worship The Constitution.”
Evan Jack, a longtime Troy resident, is one of the participants.
He said in an email that he is concerned that the police chief is interested in getting the financial grant from ICE.
“Hopefully Chief Ellis has considered that a deeper formal relationship with ICE would compel him to follow whatever future mandates the agency and the current administration will require,” Jack said.
“Beyond illegal immigrants, who else might he someday stop, question, arrest and detain? In what capacity will he serve — as ICE agent or Troy Police Chief?”
Arrestee’s future
Meanwhile, the woman from Brazil who was arrested in Troy is hoping to find a way to stay in this country.
Cerretani said her client is pursuing an asylum claim, which can allow some people to avoid deportation because they fear future harm or persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a social group.
“She fears returning to Brazil, which she describes as dangerous and riddled with crime and violence,” Cerretani said.
On May 29, the U.S. State Department released a travel advisory for Brazil, saying travelers should exercise increased caution due to crime and kidnapping.
The advisory says: “Violent crime, including murder, armed robbery, and carjacking, can occur in urban areas, day and night.”
‘Always the exception’
Cerretani said constitutional guarantees like the right to due process, such as not being held indefinitely without a bond hearing, should be important to everybody.
“The thing I most want people who tuned this out to understand is that constitutional protections don’t stop at citizenship — they restrain what the government may do to anyone,” she said. “A right the government can switch off for your neighbor is one it can switch off for you.”
She described the people who call her and seek help.
“I watch this scenario play out again and again. Someone who considers themselves hard on immigration will still pick up the phone and ask me to help their nanny, their landscaper, the man who builds their decks — because, they’ll explain, ‘they’re not like the rest of them.’
“The immigrant you actually know is always the exception. We have let this issue become so polarized that we’ve lost sight of the simplest truth of all: at the end of the day, they are just people.”
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