<\/p>\n
A rightwing Brazilian influencer who claimed Donald Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown targeted only \u201ccrooks\u201d has been arrested by ICE agents in New Jersey.<\/p>\n
J\u00fanior Pena, whose full name is Eust\u00e1quio da Silva Pena J\u00fanior, declared his support for the US president in a recent video message to his hundreds of thousands of social media followers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI [support] Donald Trump \u2013 I like the guy,\u201d announced the South American TikToker and Instagrammer whose account<\/a> purports to show \u201cthe reality of the United States\u201d from a migrant\u2019s perspective.<\/p>\n In a previous video, Pena reportedly urged Brazilians to stay calm and not \u201cdespair\u201d after reports that ICE agents were rounding up migrants, including Brazilians. \u201cBut they\u2019re all crooks. The lot of them,\u201d he falsely claimed<\/a> of the migrants being seized.<\/p>\n On Saturday, Pena was himself reportedly detained and sent to the Delaney Hall detention facility in Newark, New Jersey. One friend told the local newspaper<\/a> the Brazilian Times that Pena had been taken into custody after missing a court hearing. The detainee\u2019s lawyer, Andrew Lattarulo, was reportedly trying to resolve the situation and prevent him being transferred to another state.<\/p>\n The Brazilian influencer has reportedly lived in the US since 2009 and hails from Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais, from where a large number of people have emigrated to the US and Europe.<\/p>\n Pena uses his social networks to echo the stories of migrants as well as voices critical of Brazil\u2019s leftwing president, Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva<\/a>, and those supportive of its recently jailed former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, who is an ally of Trump.<\/p>\n The US\u2019s estimated 2 million-strong Brazilian community has been badly affected by Trump\u2019s anti-migrant offensive, with the number of deported Brazilians hitting a record high of 2,785 last year, compared with 1,640 in 2024.<\/p>\n In a recent report about the \u201cveritable manhunt\u201d playing out under Trump, the Brazilian magazine Veja warned<\/a> readers: \u201cThere is an atmosphere of fear on the streets where anyone who \u2018looks foreign\u2019 can be a target \u2026 irrespective of their [immigration] status.\u201d<\/p>\n The magazine said Brazilian migrants in cities such as Boston were adopting drastic \u201csurvival tactics\u201d including not speaking Portuguese in public and trying to dress like \u201caverage Americans\u201d when leaving their homes.<\/p>\n Leftwing Brazilians flocked to Pena\u2019s Instagram account to taunt him after news of his detention went viral. \u201cYou supported Trump and in the end you suffered the consequences,\u201d wrote one. \u201cWhat goes around comes around,\u201d a second critic posted.<\/p>\n Friends of the influencer posted messages asking his followers to pray.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n