A Brazilian influencer who loudly applauded Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown — and repeatedly claimed it would only target “crooks” — has now been arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Júnior Pena, a right-wing Brazilian social media personality with hundreds of thousands of followers, was arrested by ICE agents in New Jersey over the weekend, The Guardian reports. Pena, whose full name is Eustáquio da Silva Pena Júnior, built his online brand around praising Trump, dismissing concerns about immigration enforcement, and mocking migrants who feared raids.
“I support Donald Trump — I like the guy,” Pena declared in a recent video posted to TikTok and Instagram, where he markets his content as showing “the reality of the United States” through a migrant’s eyes.
That enthusiasm didn’t fade even as ICE ramped up arrests. In an earlier video, Pena urged Brazilians not to “despair” over reports of migrants being detained, insisting those taken into custody deserved it. “But they’re all crooks. The lot of them,” he said, brushing off concerns from within his own community.
On Saturday, that confidence collapsed.
According to a friend who spoke to the Brazilian Times, Pena was taken into ICE custody after missing a court hearing and transferred to Delaney Hall, an immigration detention facility in Newark, New Jersey. His attorney, Andrew Lattarulo, has reportedly been attempting to resolve the case and prevent Pena from being moved to another state.
Pena has lived in the United States since 2009 and is originally from Belo Horizonte, the capital of Brazil’s Minas Gerais state, a major source of Brazilian emigration to the U.S. and Europe. Online, he cultivated an audience by sharing migrant stories while simultaneously attacking Brazil’s left-wing president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and praising Brazil’s jailed far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro, a close Trump ally.
That mix of pro-Trump politics and immigrant commentary earned Pena loyal fans — and, now, a wave of backlash.
Brazil’s estimated 2 million-strong immigrant community in the United States has been hit hard by Trump’s renewed immigration push. Deportations of Brazilians reportedly reached a record 2,785 last year, up sharply from ,640 in 2024, fueling fear across immigrant neighborhoods.
Brazilian magazine Veja recently described the enforcement surge as a “veritable manhunt,” warning that “anyone who ‘looks foreign’ can be a target … irrespective of their immigration status.” The outlet reported that Brazilian migrants in cities like Boston have adopted survival tactics such as avoiding Portuguese in public and dressing to blend in.
After news of Pena’s detention spread, Brazilian immigrants flooded his Instagram page — not with sympathy, but with blunt reminders.
“You supported Trump and in the end you suffered the consequences,” one commenter wrote.
“What goes around comes around,” another added, according to The Guardian.
For many observers, the irony was impossible to miss: a man who cheered mass deportation, convinced it would never reach him, now sitting in detention alongside the very migrants he once waved off as disposable.
