A rightwing Brazilian influencer who publicly defended Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown — claiming it targeted only “crooks” — has been arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in New Jersey.
Júnior Pena, whose full name is Eustáquio da Silva Pena Júnior, had recently declared his support for Trump in a video shared with his hundreds of thousands of followers on TikTok and Instagram.
“I support Donald Trump — I like the guy,” said the influencer, whose accounts claim to show “the reality of the United States” from a migrant’s point of view.
In an earlier video, Pena urged Brazilians not to panic amid reports of widespread immigration raids, including arrests of Brazilian nationals. “They’re all crooks. Every one of them,” he falsely claimed, referring to migrants being detained by ICE.
On Saturday, Pena was himself reportedly taken into custody and transferred to Delaney Hall, an immigration detention facility in Newark, New Jersey. A friend told the Brazilian Times newspaper that Pena was arrested after missing a court hearing. His attorney, Andrew Lattarulo, was reportedly attempting to resolve the case and prevent his transfer to a detention center in another state.
Pena has lived in the United States since 2009 and is originally from Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais — a Brazilian state long known as a major source of migrants to the US and Europe.
Through his social media platforms, Pena frequently amplifies migrant stories while also promoting criticism of Brazil’s leftwing president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and voicing support for the recently jailed former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, a close ally of Trump.
Brazil’s estimated two million-strong community in the US has been heavily impacted by Trump’s renewed anti-immigration push. Deportations of Brazilian nationals reached a record 2,785 last year, up from 1,640 in 2024, according to official figures.
In a recent report describing a “veritable manhunt” under Trump’s immigration policies, the Brazilian magazine Veja warned that fear had spread across migrant communities.
“There is an atmosphere of fear on the streets where anyone who ‘looks foreign’ can become a target — regardless of their immigration status,” the magazine reported.
Veja added that Brazilian migrants in cities such as Boston have adopted extreme “survival tactics”, including avoiding speaking Portuguese in public and attempting to dress like “average Americans” when leaving their homes.
News of Pena’s detention sparked a wave of reactions online, with leftwing Brazilians flooding his Instagram account to mock the influencer.
“You supported Trump and ended up suffering the consequences,” one commenter wrote. “What goes around comes around,” another added.
Friends of Pena, meanwhile, posted messages asking followers to pray for him.
