The strategies of US construction workers to escape Trump’s blitze: ‘It has to look less Latin, riding in the car of American’

Taking into the Portuguese business names and arriving at dawn at work are some of the measures taken in areas where there is a lot of Brazilian presence in Massachusetts. Brazilians form an important workforce in civil construction in Massachusetts. Getty Images via BBC “opinion” Brazilian, attending Brazilian or local spaces with concentration of Brazilians, or going out to work in areas that employ Brazilians have been a risk for immigrants living in an irregular situation in Massachusetts, a state that houses much of the Brazilian community in the United States. ✅ Click here to follow the G1 international news channel on WhatsApp “we are afraid to put our foot away from home,” says Capixaba Douglas Souza, 37, who has been working with floors since he arrived illegally 1 and a half ago. “The worst decision of my life was to come here.” In construction, which employs thousands of Brazilians in Massachusetts, immigrants work with the certainty that they are one of the “easiest” targets of Ice, the immigration and customs service that runs operations to arrest people living in an irregular situation in the country. It is that they are very easy to identify, explains Douglas, as they carry tools and walk in vans printed with names of their building companies and houses reforms. Brazilians heard by BBC News Brazil report that entrepreneurs have exchanged the names adhesive in service vans to have less Latinos – reclaiming the surnames or words in Portuguese, for example. Others prefer not to use any prints that can identify the car as service – which ends up disrupting marketing and reducing the amount of potential customers. The idea is to try to disguise it. “If there is the Brazilian name in the van that came to pick me up, I don’t even enter,” explains Douglas, usually subcontracted by companies of colleagues to provide service on the floors. He has preferred to go to the workplace on his own. “We have to look less Latin. There are people preferring to walk in cars that American likes, not the ones we, Brazilian, likes,” says Douglas, who included in the routine accompanying Whatsapp groups to find out if there is news of Ice operations and spying the street before deciding to leave home in Lowell. In the state, there are reports of ICE blitz stopping vans from construction companies in cities such as Milford and Everett, two that concentrate much of the Brazilian community, according to lawyer Antonio Massa, who defends immigrants in the region. On a Sunday of early May, an action in the center of Framingham, another Brazilian stronghold, terrified faithful on the way out of evangelical churches. Data from 2021 from the American Community Survey Demographic Research (ACS) point out that 25.2% of jobs occupied by Brazilians in Massachusetts are in the construction sector – a ratio twice as much as in the United States as a whole, where 12.5% ​​of workers are from this area. More Brazilians have been deported from the United States and land in MG since 2010, Brazilians form the largest immigrant community of this state, according to the Diaspora Brasil Institute, based on Boston, the main city in the region. In size, she only loses to the Brazilian community of Florida. In the estimates of the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, about 420 thousand Brazilians (among people with regular and irregular immigration) lived in the jurisdiction of the consulate of Boston, in 2023. For Álvaro Lima, director of the Diaspora Brasil Institute, this number causes the contribution of Brazilians to the State to go beyond job creation and wealth. “It can be seen in the revitalization of abandoned cities and neighborhoods that have become vibrant places,” explains Lima, who sent with other institutions a letter to the Lula administration asking for more support from the community in the United States. “Today we are hunted like animals,” he adds. Across the country, in Los Angeles, California, protests burst after an ICE operation at a department store in buildings, Home Depot. It is a company known for bringing together irregular immigrant workers in search of construction work. Since assuming, President Donald Trump has promised the largest imigrant deportation program in US history, arguing that uncontrolled immigration would be “poisoning the blood” of the country, “taking job openings” and pressing public services. Even if initially promised the persecution of convicted criminals, the government expanded its scope to all immigrants, something already assimilated by the Brazilian community. In early June, about 51,000 undocumented immigrants had been detained by Ice, the largest number ever registered since September 2019. But the White House has already said Ice could reach up to 3,000 arrests per day, which represents a significant increase over around 660 daily arrests, verified during the first hundred days of Trump’s second term. Data to which the Boston Globe newspaper had access to show that this goal of increasing Trump government arrests has boosted operations in Brazilian Massachusetts areas in recent weeks. In May alone there were almost 1,500 arrests, half of them from people without criminal record, in cities such as Milford and Worcester, where there is a significant presence of Brazilians. ‘I made a big mistake’ immigrant woman is arrested in operation of ICE while working in a Nebraska factory in June 2025. Reuters via BBC from Vitória (ES), Douglas Souza entered the United States on the border with Mexico, making a debt of $ 200,000 to his wife with a coyote – named smuggler who sell crossings for Rio Grande. In Brazil, the capixaba says that it had an average monthly income of R $ 10,000 acting in the application of floors for 14 years. But he says he was “enticed” on social networks for the promise of millionaire gains. Douglas evaluates that today he has the same performance – converting to reais – which he had in Espírito Santo, doing the same service. “I made a big mistake coming here,” he reflects. The capixaba delivered to the border still in the Biden government and filed a request to stay in the country. Now you expect your proceedings in court to find out whether or not you can stay in the country. Even with a process already in progress, he fears being caught by Ice. “They are holding everyone, only then they see the situation of each one.” Once in the United States, the Brazilian even cheered for Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 elections. “I thought it was going to improve, create more services, even if I sent some away. But, in my view, it is causing chaos, it is already missing work.” He hopes to pay the remaining $ 100,000 he owes to the coyote and return to Brazil in 2026. Mineiro Tiago Machado, 42, a works inspector in Boston, says there is a decrease in the supply of work in the sector, in the face of the uncertainties of the American citizens themselves and the future, amid deportations and tariff war, especially with China. “People don’t want to build, create debts,” says Machado. Many cities of Massachusetts, where Douglas and James live, are considered “shrines”. That is, they limit cooperation with the national government in the application of the immigration law. This does not mean, however, that Ice cannot act, as it is doing. In other states, such as Florida, cooperation between local and national authorities is more present. Gaucho Fernando Santos, 47, owns a housing reform company in the Miami region and reports that traffic agents are stopping the vans conducted by immigrants on their way to service. “This has happened before, that they aim at the vans, but now it’s another dimension,” says Santos. To circumvent the government’s offensive, the Brazilian has changed ways of working. At the wheel of the vans, Santos has put drivers hired exclusively for this work and who have regular migratory status. Thus, once stopped by the blitz, it can be released. It is an extra expense for the company, since before the construction workers themselves drove the car. The situation is worse, says Santos, on the roads towards large cities such as Miami or in areas of Florida with the lowest presence of the Latin community. “My employees are all scared. They work because they have to work. Over the weekend, many don’t even leave home,” says Santos. Last month alone, two of his employees, both from Colombia, were arrested. BBC News Brasil questioned ICE about the number of Brazilians detained in recent months, but has not responded. Itamaraty also did not disclose these numbers. Protesters support immigrants in Boston. John Tlumack/The Boston Globe/Getty Images via BBC Trades of Empty Brazilians with the high tension among the Brazilian community, typical shops and restaurants in the country have felt the effects of siege on immigrants. For 33 years in the US, gaucho Marcelo Gomez, 58, acts importing products that please Brazilians, selling from cleaning products to bikinis to about 300 stores in the country. This June, he says he is selling only 15% of what he normally sold. “People with fear keep money, they don’t buy. It’s being worse than the 2008 crisis,” says Gomez. “My client is not well, so I’m not well. The stores are empty, Ice has already hit Brazilian stores, and that creates a stigma for them, no one wants to go anymore.” Owner of a Brazilian restaurant in Norwood, Massachusetts, Gabriel (name exchanged at the interviewee’s request) reports that he already feels a 30% drop in the movement, at a time when Brazilians would be consuming more, as it is near the beginning of summer. The climate of apprehension is not only among customers, but also among employees, says Gabriel, who carries the car’s glove compartment five documents that authorizes him to be a legal guardian of children of employees if they are detained by Ice. “The biggest fear is these children stop in a shelter,” says Gabriel, also owner of a marble in the region. Some of his employees, he says, are choosing to wake up early to get to work before the sun is born and avoiding any Ice morning operations. “They think they will avoid being caught.” Itamaraty employees reported to the BBC a substantial increase in the request for issuing birth certificates and updated passports to Brazilians and their children, due to the fear of families being separated. The Boston Consulate is one of the most orders to shoot, together with New York, Washington DC and Hartford.

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