EVERETT — Lucy Pineda, the head of Latinos Unidos en Massachusetts, has spent years doing what she does best — broadcasting the locations and movements of federal immigration agents across the state so that residents can steer clear of enforcement operations.
On Friday, she discovered someone had turned the same playbook on her.
Lucy Pineda, founder of Latinos Unidos en Massachusetts. Photo via Facebook.
A Facebook user sent her a series of messages on Messenger.
"If you keep fucking with ICE and posting their areas," the user wrote, "I will make sure your home address is posted for peaceful assembly."
He went on to invoke the First Amendment, claim that "some people have subcontracted for some fantastic 3 letter agencies," and added: "Remember you home doesn't need to have privacy."
Pineda responded the way most people respond when their own address enters the conversation — she notified the authorities. Quite a few of them, anyway. Her public Facebook post, dated March 27, tagged Everett Police, Massachusetts State Police, Attorney General Maura Healey, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, Senator Ed Markey, and Everett Mayor Robert Van Campen.
"Threatening to post someone's home address and suggesting that my home 'doesn't need privacy' are acts of harassment and intimidation," Pineda wrote, "and they are not protected by the First Amendment."
She included screenshots of the messages and stated that any further threats or attempts to share her personal information would be reported to the appropriate authorities.
Pineda's public Facebook post from March 27, in which she tagged six government offices after receiving threatening messages. Screenshot via Facebook.
For those keeping score at home: an activist who shares the locations of federal law enforcement officers for a living has now contacted six different government offices because someone on Facebook suggested returning the favor.
To be clear: Mass Daily News does not condone doxxing — not Pineda, not ICE agents, not anyone. But an activist who has built a platform around publishing the real-time locations of federal officers now invoking privacy protections after receiving messages about her own address is, at minimum, worth noting.
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The people ICE is actually picking up
Pineda frames her operation as community defense. Her 111,000 Facebook followers and network of 2,500 volunteers track federal vehicles in real time and blast locations across social media the moment agents are spotted.
The problem is that the people getting the heads-up aren't all abuelitas and line cooks.
This month alone, ICE agents arrested a Guatemalan man facing seven counts of raping a child in a quiet Western Massachusetts town. They pulled a man convicted of indecent assault on a child under 14 off Massachusetts streets. They removed another man facing charges for child sexual abuse material and assault on a child under 14. A Brazilian man convicted of armed assault to murder had been ordered deported four years ago and was still walking around freely. Last December, agents picked up a man with a child rape and DUI record they described as the "worst of the worst."
Froilan Vasquez-Velasquez, a Guatemalan national facing seven counts of child rape, was arrested by ICE in Ludlow, Mass. earlier this month. Photo via ICE.
And this isn't theoretical. Earlier this month in East Boston, anti-ICE activists blew a federal operation to arrest a fugitive child rapist who had been living near an elementary school. Activists surrounded ICE vehicles, blew whistles, and tipped off the neighborhood. The target — Walter Roberto Vides-Ortez, wanted for raping a child in El Salvador — walked free for four more weeks.
Every time Pineda's network broadcasts an ICE location, everyone in the area gets the same warning — the family trying to avoid a knock on their door and the man with seven child rape charges alike. There's no filter. There's no distinction. It's a blanket tip-off.
Pineda isn't running her operation out of a garage, either. Latinos Unidos en Massachusetts is a registered 501(c)(3) that has pulled in hundreds of thousands in public money — a $75,000 community grant, nearly $200,000 through something called the state's "COVID vaccine equity initiative," earmarks in both the FY2025 and FY2026 state budgets, and additional funding from the Mass Cultural Council.
Lucy Pineda. Photo via Instagram.
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Massachusetts, for its part, has poured billions of dollars into migrant shelters since the crisis began. Governor Healey recently tucked sweeping anti-ICE provisions inside a 11 million emergency spending bill that also funds healthcare, prisons, and welfare caseworkers. The state spends the money.
No stranger to controversy
Pineda is not new to these pages. Last November, after ICE announced it had taken her twice-deported brother — Salvadoran national Emelio Neftaly Pineda, whose criminal history includes domestic assault and battery, restraining order violations, and DWI — back into custody, she responded with an 18-minute Facebook livestream in which she called Italians "narcotraficantes" and claimed they "live off drugs" and "just get high all day." That rant was directed at an East Boston Facebook page that had simply reposted the ICE announcement.
Emelio Neftaly Pineda, Lucy Pineda's twice-deported brother, in ICE custody. Photo via ICE.
Her brother had been deported twice and came back both times. His record includes domestic assault, restraining order violations, DWI, and leaving the scene of an accident. Pineda's response was to go after the ethnicity of the people who shared the news.
The principle
Latinos Unidos en Massachusetts, which Pineda founded, has positioned itself as one of the most visible anti-ICE organizations in the state. The group's social media presence regularly features updates on ICE activity, often with enough detail to serve as a real-time tracker for anyone looking to avoid federal agents.
Whether that constitutes a public service is, presumably, a matter of perspective. What's harder to argue is that publishing someone's location is activism when you do it and harassment when it's done to you.
None of the officials Pineda tagged have publicly responded to her post.
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