Federal immigration officers have taken into custody an illegal immigrant from Brazil wanted on five counts of raping a Massachusetts child.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced Tuesday that officers out of its Boston office had nabbed 24-year-old Warley Neto on Aug. 23.

“Warley Neto allegedly repeatedly assaulted a Massachusetts child and represents a significant threat to the safety of our neighborhoods,” ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations’s Boston Field Office Director Todd M. Lyons said in a statement.

Neto was apprehended by the Border Patrol after he illegally entered the United States from Mexico near Paso Del Norte in El Paso, Texas, on March 11, 2018. He was released from Border Patrol custody the following day and told to report to an immigration judge, who allowed him to remain in the country.

Neto was first encountered by police in Edgartown, Massachusetts, in February 2023 after an assault against members of his household. He was convicted of strangulation or suffocation, assault and battery on a family household member, and making a threat to commit a crime in June 2023 and sentenced to a year in prison, but he only served three months.

In January, police in Tisbury, Massachusetts, arrested Neto on a warrant for five counts of rape of a child and five counts of enticing a minor under the age of 16. The Dukes County Superior Court later indicted Neto.

The arrest was a rare instance in New England, given that local police typically do not cooperate with federal police under “sanctuary” policies that forbid the two entities from working together. Many cities and towns in New England have passed city ordinances that prevent police from working with federal immigration officers in nearly all circumstances.

In this situation, Lyons said ICE was grateful that the Dukes County Superior Court in Edgartown allowed the federal agency to take custody of Neto during his release from the Dukes County Sheriff’s Office rather than forcing federal officers to rearrest him once he was let back into the community.

“Too often local jurisdictions refuse to honor immigration detainers and release dangerous offenders back into the community to reoffend,” said Lyons, who added that ICE is focused on arresting the “most egregious noncitizen offenders from New England.”

ICE asked local police to hold Neto in custody for up to 48 hours until he could be transferred into federal custody, and the request was honored.

In recent weeks, ICE has increasingly arrested serious criminals charged with violent crimes after being released into the country from the border during President Joe Biden’s administration.

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Historically, the illegal immigrants whom ICE has arrested within the U.S. have been those who are wanted in their home country in connection to serious crimes or have been in the U.S. for a number of years and have criminal records that range from less serious to somewhat serious offenses, such as DUI and robbery.

Thus far in August, ICE has increasingly focused on arresting people who have a criminal record and entered the U.S. under Biden than people who entered before he was president in 2021.