ICE Raids Lead To Dozens Of Arrests In Martha’s Vineyard And Nantucket

Immigration raids on the posh island retreats of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard took place on the morning of  May 27th, resulting in dozens of arrests and angry reactions from wealthy Democrats.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released a statement on Wednesday morning stating that roughly 40 people had been detained on Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, including one documented gang member and one child sex offender. The agency offered no statement for the remaining roughly 38 people (the Trump Administration has made it clear that all migrants within the US illegally are fair game). 

The U.S. Coast Guard supported ICE’s operations on Martha’s Vineyard and a Coast Guard spokesperson confirmed that Guard Station Menemsha was being used to transfer detainees off the island.  Reports from Martha’s Vineyard claim the migrants arrested were construction workers and domestic workers.

ICE and the FBI have reportedly begun
operations on Martha’s Vineyard, detaining individuals suspected of being undocumented.
Local witnesses say the island’s immigrant community is living in fear amid concerns over a broader immigration crackdown under the Trump administration. pic.twitter.com/Vi2va2Mawk

— david (@realdavidonline) May 28, 2025

Locals reported the raids to congressional representatives, arguing that the ICE raids are “creating fear” among the migrant population of the area.

“Congressman Keating was made aware of the presence of federal agents on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket today by concerned constituents,” Congressman Bill Keating’s office said in a statement. “While the specifics of these detentions remain unknown at this time, Congressman Keating encourages any family members of those detained to contact his office so a congressional inquiry can be submitted to ICE to ensure due process is followed and not, once again, thrown to the wayside.”

The simple solution to the problem?  Stop hiring illegal migrant employees and they won’t be enticed to sneak into the US where they’ll get arrested.

This woman in Martha’s Vineyard is upset about the ICE raid because they are taking their help. Keep in mind none of these illegals actually live in Martha’s vineyard. They’re not allowed to. They have to bus in to work.
pic.twitter.com/oNWaxKvaaR

— Royce Lopez (@hippojuicefilm) May 30, 2025

“Due process” for illegal immigrants simply means confirmation that they do not have American citizenship and then removing them from the country.  Under federal law they are not entitled to court appearances or a jury trial, as Democrats naively assume.

Some might recall the national incident in Martha’s Vineyard in 2022, when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis bussed 50 illegals to the wealthy progressive island in protest of Joe Biden’s open border policies which flooded the US with an estimated 10 million migrants in the course of four years. 

Democrats tried to spin the event as a “criminal act” of human trafficking by DeSantis, but the damage to their narrative had already been done.  The leftists of Martha’s Vineyard gave the migrants a nice cheap lunch, cried about the travesty of their treatment, then pushed them all back on a bus and promptly booted them out of the community – sending them to be held at Joint Base Cape Cod, a military base in Massachusetts.

The point of the exercise was to prove that Democrat elites support illegal immigration into other people’s communities, but not their own communities.  The Martha’s Vineyard incident only confirmed their hypocrisy.  Today, the mass deportation effort now in play under the Trump Administration is party due to the actions of conservative governors who exposed the crisis through the bussing of illegals into northern Democrat strongholds.