Federal immigration agents took custody of a man convicted of raping a child in Lowell as soon as he walked out of Massachusetts prison, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Aurelio Roldan Roldan, an Ecuadorian national, now sits in ICE custody awaiting immigration proceedings after finishing his sentence in Massachusetts Department of Correction custody.
ICE’s Boston field office said it arrested Roldan after his release from state prison, according to New Bedford Guide. The agency said the arrest followed his release from state custody and identified him as unlawfully present in the United States and as a suspected removable noncitizen from Ecuador. Roldan entered the country illegally in 2021 and was later released into the U.S., per the outlet’s reporting.
How the Lowell Case Began in 2023
The case traces back to March 2023, when Lowell police arrested then-18-year-old Roldan after a mother reported what she described as an ongoing sexual relationship between him and a girl she said was 13 or 14. Investigators said they found sexually explicit photos and videos of the girl on his phone. He was arraigned in Lowell District Court and held on $5,000 cash bail, the report states.
Officials said Roldan has since been convicted in Massachusetts of rape of a child and child sexual abuse material offenses. A separate account from the same outlet describes the case as involving two counts of rape of a child and child-pornography-related convictions, per New Bedford Guide’s earlier coverage of a related Bridgewater-area crackdown.
ICE Sought Advance Notice Before Release
According to the report, ICE contacted Lowell police shortly after Roldan’s 2023 arrest and sought notice before any release, a step consistent with how the agency describes its detainer process. ICE defines an immigration detainer as a request to a federal, state or local law-enforcement agency, including a jail or prison, to notify the agency as early as possible before releasing a potentially removable person, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Massachusetts law complicates how far local authorities can go in honoring such requests. Massachusetts law provides no authority for Massachusetts court officers to arrest and hold an individual solely on a federal civil immigration detainer beyond the time the person would otherwise be entitled to be released, according to a statement from the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office on a 2017 Supreme Judicial Court decision. Separately, the Massachusetts Trial Court’s own policy states that if a defendant is released from state custody and ICE officers or employees are present with a civil detainer, they may be permitted to enter the lockup to take custody of the defendant, per the Massachusetts Trial Court.
Part of a Broader Enforcement Surge Statewide
Roldan’s arrest lands amid a marked rise in immigration enforcement across Massachusetts. The state recorded 572 ICE arrests in July, one of its highest monthly totals since agents carried out an enforcement surge the previous September, according to WBUR. A WBUR analysis found that from September 2025 through early August 2026, ICE removed 1,833 people who had been apprehended in Massachusetts, including roughly 200 minors.
Of those 1,833 removals, the same analysis found 301 people had criminal convictions, 510 had pending charges, and 1,022 were classified as immigration violators. Ten percent of those removed from Massachusetts were deported to Ecuador, the station reported. Nationally, ICE arrested nearly 50,000 people in July, more than five times the number arrested in December 2024, with Texas and Florida each recording arrest totals far above Massachusetts’s count for the same month.
Beyond the enforcement statistics, the specifics of Roldan’s immigration case remain limited to what ICE and local reporting have disclosed. It is not established whether he has been ordered removed, whether he has appealed or sought relief, or how his proceedings will conclude. For now, officials say only that he remains in ICE custody pending those proceedings.
