Editor’s note: This article was updated with new information on Monday, May 11.
A 50-year-old South Berwick resident taken into custody by U.S. immigration agents early in the morning of April 16 was moved on May 1 from a detention center in Rhode Island and was listed in a detention center in Louisiana as of Monday.
Carlos Santos, who was detained on Main Street and taken to the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, R.I., was at the Winn Correctional Facility in Winnfield, La., on May 11, according to the online detainee locator of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Early last week, a spokesperson at the ICE office in Burlington, Mass., confirmed that Santos is in federal custody, but did not provide any further information and hung up when asked her name. A second spokesperson contacted said to email the Boston ICE office, which did not respond to email inquiries
According to a statement from ICE last month, Santos, who is from the Dominican Republic, was arrested on drug- or alcohol-related violations and had an order of removal by an immigration judge from 2012.
Court records show that in 2021, two 2009 convictions – for intent to sell less than half an ounce of cocaine and for selling less than half an ounce to someone for $280 – were vacated, meaning the convictions were erased from his criminal record.
The convictions were vacated after a lawyer filed a motion noting Santos was not told by his original lawyer that pleading guilty would affect his immigration status.
“The defendant was never advised by Attorney (Steve) Keable as to the likely or even possible immigration consequences of his guilty pleas, despite repeated requests and inquiries from the defendant regarding same,” said the 2012 motion to vacate the guilty plea and sentence filed by attorney Brian Lavallee of Portsmouth.
Keable, who died in 2018, “did not fully and fairly advise the defendant as to the nature of his particular situation, despite repeated requests from the defendant, such that he was not able to make a fully informed decision as to how best to proceed with his case,” the motion said.
It further said that if Santos had been advised he would face mandatory removal from the U.S., he would have demanded a jury trial instead of pleading guilty.
“The government has a lot of discretion about what to do with immigration cases,” according to Kiernan Majerus-Collins, an immigration lawyer in Lewiston who is running for state representative from that district.
“The reality is that people can have adverse consequences even if they are just charged with a crime” and not necessarily convicted, Majerus-Collins said.
According to court records, Santos served 63 days of a prison sentence in New Hampshire in 2009 and was released in October of that year after a motion to release him, supported by the State, was granted. Court records also indicate he has a Social Security card.
Santos, a grandfather whose now-adult children attended Marshwood schools, previously worked at UPS as a driver, according to posts on social media from community members.
