Federal immigration agents arrested three workers at Kobe Japanese Restaurant in Biddeford on Jan. 22, according to a restaurant manager.

The agents arrived shortly before the restaurant’s 11 a.m. opening, requested proof of citizenship from everyone there and did not provide an explanation for the arrests, the manager said.

Around the same time, other agents arrived at the South Portland location and detained three more workers.

Among the six taken were immigrants from China and Latin America, the manager said, declining to name them. All were “legal to work,” she said. It is unclear where they are being held and whether any had a criminal history.

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Elmara Sofia Timoteo Alves Correia, 28, of Lewiston was arrested by ICE agents Jan. 20. She was featured in the agency’s news release announcing “Operation Catch of the Day,” which it said was aimed at detaining the “worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens.”

The most serious charge against her is a misdemeanor child endangerment offense related to an incident last May in which the child’s father says their 4-year-old left the house for several hours to join other children playing soccer outside.

Correia is from Angola. Her attorney said she entered the U.S. legally on a student visa nearly eight years ago and has never been subject to expedited removal proceedings.

Her attorney challenged her detention in a petition filed Jan. 21, and a judge issued a temporary emergency order barring her transfer from the Massachusetts facility where she’s being held.

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Delfino Nsuka was minutes from his home in Lewiston, his wife said, when ICE agents stopped him on the afternoon of Jan. 22.

Agents told Delfino they ran a “check for immigration” and that he was “going to have to come with us.” They never ask for his name in the video, although Jaylee said her husband gave them his work authorization papers.

He was being held in Plymouth, Massachusetts, as of Jan. 28 and was scheduled to appear in immigration court in February.

Jaylee said her husband, who is from Angola, has no criminal history and has done “everything he is supposed to do” for his immigration case.

Delfino arrived to the U.S. eight years ago on a visa and had applied for asylum, she said. Jaylee said they got married last year and were in the middle of sorting out the paperwork to adjust his status.

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Hassane Barry, 38, an asylum seeker from the Republic of Guinea in West Africa, was detained Jan. 21 on Preble Street.

He and his wife, Nene, were pulled over with their 1-month-old baby in the vehicle. Agents shattered the driver’s side window, and Nene and the child were left alone inside the car.

Barry has no known criminal history. The Barrys have lived in the U.S. since 2023 and filed a request for asylum shortly after arriving, his attorney wrote in a court filing.

A small group of bystanders gathered to document the arrest. Video provided to the Press Herald shows the immediate aftermath: Shards of glass covering the road and the inside of the car as Nene repeats “I have a baby.”

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Juan Sebastian Carvajal-Munoz, a civil engineer from Colombia employed by an engineering consulting company, was detained in downtown Portland on Jan. 22, according to The Maine Monitor.

Witnesses described masked agents in police vests smashing the window of Carvajal-Munoz’s car, pulling him into their vehicle and driving off. His car was left running.

Carvajal-Munoz received a master’s degree from the University of Maine in 2023, and colleagues said he was in the country on a work visa. A background check found no criminal record.

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Marcos Da Silva was pulled over on Franklin Street and handcuffed by agents in tactical gear and face coverings on Jan. 20, according to his wife. Da Silva, a contractor, had been followed after picking up a day laborer from a Portland shelter, she said. It is unclear whether the passenger was also detained.

Da Silva, 32, is from Brazil and entered the U.S. as an asylum seeker, his wife said. She filed a petition to sponsor him for a green card in 2024, and their application is still being processed.

He has no criminal history, and a background check through the Maine State Bureau of Identification returned no records.

Da Silva was being held at a facility in Plymouth, Massachusetts, as of Jan. 21.

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Francoise Makuiza was arrested by ICE agents early in the morning of Jan. 23 as she was on her way to work at an assisted living facility in Portland, her lawyer said.

Attorney Kristine Hanly said in a phone call Jan. 26 that a background check revealed her client has no criminal history in Maine.

Makuiza has lived in Maine for more than 12 years and is the mother of a U.S. citizen, Hanly said. She said Makuiza was previously granted refugee status by Colombia after fleeing genocide in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Makuiza arrived in the United States on a visa, Hanly said, and has been waiting for a final determination on her asylum request since participating in an interview with immigration officials last summer.

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Emanuel Ludovic Mbuangi Landila, a Cumberland County corrections officer, was detained Jan. 21 in Portland’s Bayside neighborhood.

A witness described five cars descending upon a driver near Kennedy Park, threatening him with a Taser and taking him into custody around 5 p.m.

Shortly after, the sheriff said he talked with an ICE supervisor who told him the officer was living in the country illegally. Joyce said that the officer’s background check came up “squeaky clean” when he was hired in February 2024 and that his paperwork showed he was allowed to work in the country until April 2029.

McLaughlin identified the man as Landila and said he is from Angola and illegally crossed the southern border in 2019.

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Agents wearing police tactical vests detained Micheline Ntumba, a Portland resident, before 8:30 a.m. on Jan. 21 after she dropped off one of her four children at Portland High School, her 20-year-old daughter told The Maine Monitor.

The daughter said agents followed Ntumba to the parking lot of the family’s apartment near Deering Oaks Park.

Ntumba, who is from Democratic Republic of the Congo, has been in the United States for almost 10 years and has a pending asylum application, her daughter said. A background check found no criminal record.

She was being held at a processing facility in Basile, Louisiana, as of Jan. 23, according to ICE’s online detainee locator system.

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Makengo, an Angolan asylum seeker and father of four, was detained by ICE agents on the evening of Jan. 23 after visiting his newborn child at the hospital, his pastor said.

Senior Minister Scott Cousineau from First Parish Saco Church said he was “shocked” by the arrest of the long-time parishioner who he believes did “everything he was supposed to” for his asylum case. Cousineau declined to share Makengo’s last name without the family’s permission.

He said Makengo has been with First Parish for more than eight years, joining almost immediately after he arrived in the U.S., and he is one of the church’s greeters who welcome people before services.

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Yanick Joao Carneiro, an asylum seeker from Angola, was at the ICE field office in Scarborough for a routine check-in when agents detained him without a warrant.

Carneiro was brought to Burlington, Massachusetts, on Jan. 20, hours before a judge ordered that ICE not move him out of Maine, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maine.

Carneiro had applied for asylum after arriving in the United States in 2023, according to his petition. He has a wife and two children, who are both U.S. citizens, in Maine.

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Lograi Tuzolana, an Angolan woman living in Lewiston, was detained Jan. 21 at a scheduled check-in at a Scarborough ICE office.

Tuzolana has been seeking asylum status since 2022 when she fled the South African nation. She “has reported for ICE check-ins every two months since her arrival” and has no criminal history, according to documents.

After showing her driver’s license and being told twice that her background check came back clean, an agent emerged and told her they were arresting her for failure to provide a photo check-in back in 2023.

She was transferred to a facility in Burlington, Massachusetts, before a judge ordered her immediate release.

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A York County Jail corrections officer was arrested by ICE outside a scheduled immigration appointment in Scarborough, York County Sheriff William King said on Jan. 23.

The officer, whom King declined to name, had passed a criminal background check and federal verification before being hired.

He was in custody at a Plymouth, Massachusetts, facility as of Jan. 23.

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Evaristo Kalonji, an asylum seeker from Angola, was detained by immigration agents on Jan. 22 and was being held in Rhode Island as of Jan. 28.

His empty car was found on Westbrook Street in South Portland after friends reported him missing, the Maine Monitor reported.

Kalonji has no criminal record. He has a pending asylum case and originally had a court date scheduled for this year, but it was recently postponed to May 2028, Westbrook pastor Carlos Nzolameso said.

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Eighteen-year-old Jean-Pierre Obiang was detained after a minor car crash near the Market Basket parking lot in Westbrook on Jan. 20.

Obiang is a student at the University of Southern Maine, where he is studying accounting. The family are asylum seekers from Gabon and have been living in Westbrook for three years, his mother said.

A criminal background check on Obiang showed no offenses in Maine.

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Manuel, an Angolan man, was driving to work with his wife when he was stopped by ICE agents in the early days of “Operation Catch of the Day.”

His wife Gladise, who is pregnant, was originally arrested but says agents agreed to release her when they learned the couple had four children at home who would be unattended.

The couple has lived in Maine since 2019 after crossing into the U.S. from Mexico, Gladise said. Manuel’s attorney Kira Gagarin said the family was allowed into the country for humanitarian reasons and that he has been waiting for an immigration court hearing scheduled in 2028.

“They’ve attended all of their hearings,” Gagarin said, “and they’ve gone to all of their required check-ins.”

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