Azorean officials prepare for wave of U.S. deportees

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NEW BEDFORD — The Azorean government is bracing for a wave of people returning to the Atlantic archipelago as President Donald Trump moves forward with plans to deport undocumented immigrants.

Officials from the Regional Government of the Azores met with New Bedford activists and political leaders this month as anxieties grew in corners of the local Portuguese immigrant community over whether Trump’s mass deportation campaign will affect them.

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The South Coast’s large population of immigrants born in Portugal includes many people without legal U.S. residency, who arrived on tourist visas and never went back, according to Helena DaSilva Hughes, president of the Immigrants’ Assistance Center.

Amid a flurry of executive orders declaring an emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border, ending asylum programs, and a mass deportation campaign, many local Azoreans without legal residency are preparing to leave, and some have already returned.

DaSilva Hughes says they’re responding to coverage from major news outlets in Portugal about the potential impact of Trump’s mass deportation campaign on diaspora communities in the U.S. 

“The calls I’m getting from Portuguese, they’re in a panic,” said DaSilva Hughes. “I think that word has gotten out on RTPI, Público, and people are starting to notice.”

On Feb. 3, DaSilva Hughes met with Azorean Regional Director of Communities José Maria de Medeiros Andrade at the New Bedford Public Library to discuss the situation and an almost 30-year-old protocol on how to handle deportations. Also present was Francisco Viveiros, president of Casa dos Açores da Nova Inglaterra (House of the Azores in New England), a cultural organization based in Fall River.

The protocol dates back to an earlier wave of deportations to the islands, from the 1980s through the 2010s, in which thousands, often without any lasting ties to the Portuguese archipelago, were sent back, leading to a social crisis.

“I think Portugal is keeping an eye on the situation,” said DaSilva Hughes. “I think they’re ready, and this collaboration will be strong.”

She added that unlike the previous wave — when many of the deported were green-card holders removed due to criminal convictions, often related to drug addiction — most Azoreans facing deportation now have overstayed tourist visas. She said many simply liked the U.S. and found greater economic opportunity here than in the Azores, the poorest region of Portugal. 

“We know that there are over 1,000 families in this situation, if not more,” on the South Coast, DaSilva Hughes said. “I think a lot of them are planning to self-deport” — that is, they’re planning to return to Portugal rather than risk arrest.

DaSilva Hughes said she is aware of several undocumented Azoreans with years in the U.S. who are tying up loose ends before departure.

“A lot of people have put their houses up for sale and have small businesses,” she said. “They’re not going to leave until they cash out.”

Yet many local Portuguese are scared to even acknowledge the issue.

“Portuguese people always want to shut me up when I bring it up,” said DaSilva Hughes. “I always get the impression that they don’t want to bring attention to the issue, but there is really a large population of [Portuguese] visa overstays in our area.”

“We can blend in a lot easier because we’re European,” said DaSilva Hughes, who immigrated as a child from Madeira, another Portuguese archipelago, and became a U.S. citizen in the 1980s. “As a result, there’s this sense in the [Portuguese] community that it’s other people’s problem.”

Azorean official meets with state reps

On Feb. 5, Andrade met with state Rep. Antonio F.D. Cabral and Sen. Michael Rodrigues, co-chairs of the Portuguese-American Legislative Caucus on Beacon Hill. The legislators said the conversation revolved around avoiding the social crisis that hit the Azores during the deportation wave in the 1990s and 2000s.

“The Azorean government thinks they need to prepare in case there is a big flow of people being deported,” said Cabral, an immigrant from the Azorean island of Pico, and a Democrat whose district includes New Bedford’s South End. “They feel there is a need to prepare and plan, instead of being caught by surprise like they were in the 1990s.”

“Twenty years ago, the Azores was not ready for them,” said Rodrigues, a Democrat whose district includes swaths of Bristol and Plymouth counties. “I just appreciate the fact that they’re being proactive in planning, have learned from history, and do not want bad history to repeat.”

Representatives from the Azorean Regional Government and Casa dos Açores da Nova Inglaterra did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

More than a fifth of New Bedford’s over 101,000 residents were foreign-born, according to the 2023 American Community Survey one-year estimate, and almost 55% of the foreign-born were non-citizens. A total of 31% of city residents identified as Portuguese in the 2021 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimate. Of that, more than 2,100 said they were not U.S. citizens. 

According to data from Transactional Records Clearinghouse Immigration, a data collection site, 2,213 Portuguese nationals were deported from the U.S. between the 2003 and 2024 fiscal years. Over that time, 533 were deported from Massachusetts, second only to the 1,060 from New Jersey. 

A 2012 study published by the University of the Azores found that 1,175 people were deported from the U.S. to the Azores between 1987 and 2012 — and that the vast majority had come from the islands to the U.S. as small children.

Azorean TV coverage anticipates influx from U.S.

During an appearance on Jan. 30 on “Grande Debate,” a political talk show on RTP Açores, Communities Secretary of the Azorean Regional Government Paulo Estêvão noted that deportations from the U.S. to the Azores had diminished greatly in recent years. 

“During the last American administration, more deportees arrived from Canada than the U.S.,” he said in Portuguese, referring to the Biden administration. He then read off data points from the Azorean government that reported only a dozen deportees arriving in the islands between 2021 and 2024.

Rúben Medeiros, the show’s moderator, noted that 253 were deported to the archipelago under the Obama administration, but only 74 during the first Trump administration.

Estêvão added the government is reformulating its plans and processes due to the unpredictability of Trump’s mass deportation campaign. The government is turning to groups in the U.S. to get a better understanding of the situation here.  

“We are revisiting the model with the thought that the number of people returning could increase significantly,” he said. “The truth is that we don’t know what the breadth of the plan will be.”

Paula Silva, president of the Regional Association for Rehabilitation and Socio-Cultural Integration in the Azores (known by its Portuguese acronym, ARRISCA), a social services nonprofit based in Ponta Delgada, São Miguel, Azores, said the wave of returns has already begun.

“Families have already started to come,” Silva said in Portuguese in an interview with The New Bedford Light, adding that others were already enrolling children in classes and inquiring about the logistics of moving to the islands. “Yesterday, I had to meet with my team to prepare them for the increase we know is coming.”

Estêvão, speaking on “Grande Debate,” confirmed the trend.

“What we foresaw happening is happening,” he said. “Those who do not find themselves in a regular situation in the U.S. are returning.”

“We have reports that some of them are arriving,” he continued. “And we know that other families have manifested their desire to do likewise.”

Estêvão acknowledged the anxiety in the diaspora.

“This slew of announcements [by the Trump administration] has already had a concrete effect in the sense that those who find themselves in an irregular situation are returning of their own free will,” he said. “That may be one of the goals this current American administration hoped to achieve with these types of pronouncements.” 

Historical precedent

The threat of deportations has revived the trauma from the uptick of removals to the archipelago, an autonomous region of Portugal, dating back four decades. 

Two laws played a significant role in the uptick. First was the 1986 Immigration Reform Act, which created paths to legalization for undocumented people, increased employer sanctions for hiring undocumented workers, and increased appropriations for immigration enforcement. Notably, the bill allowed federal authorities to ask local law enforcement agencies to help them enforce immigration law and to compensate them.

According to DaSilva Hughes, the real crisis hit the Portuguese community with enactment in 1997 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. The law applied a broad category of crimes — aggravated felonies — only to non-citizens, which flagged them for removal proceedings. The law was retroactive, meaning one could be deported for a crime committed decades prior. 

“The majority of Portuguese were green-card holders,” she said. “They came to the U.S. as children and no longer had connections to Portugal.”

Cabral added that two political forces coalesced around the same time on the South Coast to take advantage of provisions in the laws.

“[Deportations] only started happening because of active collaboration with the then-district attorney of Bristol County,” Cabral said, referring to Paul Walsh, who held that office from 1990 to 2006. “That coordination was enhanced once [Thomas Hodgson] was the sheriff. Basically, that’s how all those folks were targeted.”

Gov. Bill Weld appointed Hodgson as Bristol County sheriff in 1997. Hodgson had been a New Bedford city councilor in the 1990s. He opened the C. Carlos Carreiro Immigrant Detention Center in 2007 and signed an accompanying detention contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The 1997 law also created the 287(g) program, which enables state and local law enforcement agencies to enter into an agreement with ICE for training and certification to perform certain immigration enforcement duties. Hodgson signed such an agreement in 2017.

“I think because that program was here, Portuguese were an easy target,” said DaSilva Hughes. She added that the demographic realities of the area meant Azoreans were heavily impacted.

The uptick in removals spurred DaSilva Hughes to form a group inspired by Las Damas en Blanco, a dissident group of mothers of those disappeared by the Castro regime in Cuba. The mothers, partners, and sisters of the mostly male deportees formed Women Immigrant Support Hub (WISH), and regularly demonstrated at the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office in Fall River and the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office in Dartmouth, in a bid to pressure the agencies to end cooperation with Immigration and Naturalization Service and its successors.

In May 2021, the Department of Homeland Security terminated its 287(g) and immigrant detention agreements with the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office following an investigation by then-Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, which found that deputies used excessive force during a violent incident at the Bristol County House of Corrections in 2020. 

According to ICE, the only law enforcement agency with an active 287(g) agreement in the Commonwealth is the Massachusetts Department of Correction. The Plymouth County Sheriff’s Office houses ICE detainees at the Plymouth County House of Corrections as well.

According to data from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, there were 59 Portuguese nationals detained between fiscal years 2021 and 2024. Of those, 49 were detained in New England with the remaining 10 in Florida.

How this time will be different

The chapter remains painful for many in the community. But experts note that the coming wave will likely look different.

“Those coming now are undocumented and will have different characteristics,” said Silva, president of ARRISCA. She added previous waves of returnees were raised in the U.S. and often had little connection to the islands.

“That is the big difference between 20 years ago and the present,” she said. “Their reintegration into society was made difficult by the fact that they didn’t know Portuguese. They also had a stigma attached to their crimes.”

As a result, she said, many fell into cycles of homelessness and substance abuse after returning to the Azores. But the majority who may return to the archipelago now grew up on the islands and have active local ties and marketable skills. She added that technological advancement has also made preparation easier.

“Nowadays, social media and the internet makes things so much easier,” Silva said. 

The Portuguese government has also streamlined the process by centralizing communications about deportations through the Foreign Ministry, as opposed to the individual consular offices — such as those in Boston, the now-closed Fall River consulate, New Bedford, and Providence.

“Back then, we didn’t know often until the day before their arrival,” she said, adding that now organizations have time to prepare.

Activists and government officials also say they are moving cautiously and they don’t want the local Azorean community to panic.

“You cannot put them in the same category as people from Central America,” said DaSilva Hughes. “They are not fleeing violence. They are not fleeing persecution.”

Silva added that the Azores are ready for them — and have to be ready, given the times.

“Trump is unpredictable,” she said. “But I suspect he will follow through on the deportations.”

“I believe that [Azorean] arrivals will be smooth,” she said, “and they will be welcomed with dignity and respect.”

Kevin G. Andrade is a freelance journalist and occasional contributor to The Light.