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Man in Fake ICE Gear Arrested at Kendall Polling Site During Brazil’s Presidential Vote
Police say a Port St. Lucie man in a costume raid jacket frightened Brazilian expatriates casting ballots at Miami Dade College. He says he wanted to see their reactions. Miami-Dade’s elections chief says ICE will not be at the polls in November. A Port St. Lucie man has been charged with voter intimidation after police say he walked through a Miami polling site dressed as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent while Brazilian citizens were voting in their country’s presidential election. Danilo Alves Silva, 46, was arrested Sunday afternoon at Miami Dade College’s Kendall Campus, which was serving as a polling place for Brazilians living in South Florida. According to police, he wore a blue ICE cap, an ICE raid jacket, a face mask, sunglasses and tactical boots, and carried a handheld radio as he moved between voting areas around 2 p.m. According to police, voters feared a federal agent had come to interfere with the election or to detain people in line. When a group of them confronted him with a camera rolling, police said, he grew aggressive, and detectives stepped in. ‘A Prop Costume’ Silva had no badge or identification and denied being a federal agent, according to the arrest report. He told detectives the outfit was a prop costume he had bought on Amazon. He said he had voted earlier wearing a Brazil jersey, changed clothes in his car and returned to the site to record people’s reactions on his phone. He also insisted there was no law against what he was wearing. Police say things escalated from there. According to the report, Silva told an officer he would “regret making this decision” and threatened to come after him and everyone at the scene. Investigators also allege he offered a bribe in an effort to be released. He faces charges including prohibited intimidation or suppression of voters, conspiracy to commit bribery, threatening a public servant, unlawful use of a police badge or insignia, and disorderly conduct. He was booked into Miami-Dade’s Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, given a trespass warning for the campus, and later released after posting a $5,650 bond. A court hearing is scheduled for Oct. 19. He has not entered a plea. ‘Will ICE Be at the Polls? Absolutely Not.’ The arrest landed in the middle of an anxious season for immigrant communities in South Florida, and a month before Florida’s own general election on Nov. 3. Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections Alina Garcia called a news conference to try to tamp down fears that immigration agents might appear at local polling places. “Please do not let fear, rumors or misinformation keep you from participating.” — Alina Garcia, Miami-Dade Supervisor of Elections “Will ICE be at the polls? Absolutely not,” Garcia said. She said law enforcement is never stationed inside polling places to check immigration status or interfere with anyone’s right to vote, and that officers’ role around voting sites is limited to managing traffic and keeping pedestrians safe. South Florida is home to one of the largest Brazilian communities in the United States, and Miami Dade College’s Kendall Campus was one of the sites where Brazilians in the region could vote on Sunday. Garcia’s message to them, and to everyone heading to the polls next month, was the same: voting sites are not immigration checkpoints, and anyone who tries to make them feel like one can be arrested.