ICE arrests Haitian national accused of raping girl at Rockland shelter

The Haitian migrant who allegedly raped a 15-year-old girl at a Massachusetts shelter earlier this year was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers Tuesday. 

Cory Bernard Alvarez, 26, was apprehended near his residence in Brockton by the Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) unit of ICE, according to that agency. 

“Cory Bernard Alvarez has been charged with victimizing a minor in a Massachusetts migrant shelter,” ERO Boston Field Office Director Todd M. Lyons said in a statement. “He will have his day in court and ERO Boston will continue to cooperate with the criminal court system in Massachusetts, but we cannot allow any significant noncitizen threat to the children of our communities to potentially reoffend. ERO Boston will continue to prioritize public safety by arresting and removing egregious noncitizen offenders from New England.”

Alvarez was admitted to the country legally on June 26, 2023 in New York, according to officials. However, he violated the terms of his lawful admittance when he allegedly raped a girl at the Comfort Inn at on Hingham Street in Rockland. 

The attack allegedly occurred in March, and Alvarez was arrested soon afterwards. The same day, ERO lodged an immigration detainer against Alvarez with the Plymouth County Sheriff’s Office. 

Immigration detainers are notices sent from ICE to law enforcement agencies to inform them that ICE intends to assume custody of an individual that has been detained. These notices request that law enforcement officers maintain custody of the noncitizen “for a period not to exceed 48 hours beyond the time the individual would otherwise be released.” This allows ICE to assume custody in accordance with federal laws. 

But, on June 27, Plymouth County Superior Court of Brockton “refused to honor” this immigration detainer and released Alvarez from custody on a $500 bond, according to ICE. 

Immigration Detainers are “critical public safety tools” that allow arrests to be made “in a secure and controlled custodial setting as opposed to at-large within the community,” ICE officials said in a release. They decrease the potential for individuals to reoffend because detainers allow for the direct transfer of offenders. Detainers are also valuable because they “conserve scarce government resources” by removing the need for ERO to locate and arrest individuals when they are at-large. 

Alvarez was granted bail “due to the inconsistencies in the evidence and the alleged victim’s version of events, lack of physical evidence, and [because] the surveillance did not support the claim,” his lawyer, Brian Kelley, told The Boston Globe at the time

The arrest of Alvarez this week caught officials in the Plymouth County District Attorney’s Office by surprise. 

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement apparently this morning, unbeknownst to our office, took Cory Alvarez into custody outside his house in Brockton. We came to court today prepared to move forward, and will continue to move forward with our rape case against Alvarez. This includes filing of a motion to compel his DNA,” a spokesperson said in a statement Tuesday. 

Alvarez was apparently in the country as part of the Biden administration’s Humanitarian Parole Program for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV). 

The Plymouth District Attorney’s office criticized the federal government for a lack of clarity surrounding noncitizens who have come to the U.S. through the CHNV process. 

“As part of the Alvarez case, for months now, our office has repeatedly asked questions of state and federal officials about specifics of the CHNV process. We have received little to no answers. There is clearly a reason that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has paused the issuance of travel authorizations for new CHNV beneficiaries while it undertakes a massive review of the process,” the spokesperson said. “We are prepared to return to court next Thursday.”

The victim in this case is also a Haitian migrant, officials have said. Alvarez agreed to be interviewed by police and has denied any sexual contact with the girl.

He passed two background checks and did not have any past offenses listed on a sex offender registry when he entered the U.S., Gov. Maura Healey has said. 

In a statement to the Globe after Alvarez was arrested by ICE agents this week, Kelley said that his client’s “right to be presumed innocent somehow ceases to extend to Federal Immigration agents.”

“It’s also impossible to understate how inconsistent with deeply rooted notions of justice the actions what can only be described as rogue agents of the federal government coming into a community an arresting a person who has not been convicted of any crime and was peacefully living amongst citizens after being released by the superior court,” Kelley added in his statement to the Globe.