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Voices bySharisse: Who gets to call 250 years Martha’s Vineyard home? B2 of Independence B10

Thursday, May 21, 2026

THE MARTHA’S VINEYARD TIMES

Volume 43, Issue No. 20

2 Sections

Taken from Menemsha

Price $1.00

A father and a teenage son were detained by ICE Monday. BY EUNKI SEONWOO AND NICHOLAS VUKOTA

NICHOLAS VUKOTA

Blue Yonder at Salte.

fter a father and son were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) early this week, a network of Islanders are scrambling to keep them from being sent out of the state to Texas. Rogerio da Silva Lima and his son, Nycolas de Al Varenga Lima, 15, were taken into ICE custody in Woods Hole on Monday morning. According to the Vineyard chapter of LUCE Immigrant Justice Network, the father and son were “picked up by the [U.S.] Coast Guard off of a fishing boat in Menemsha,” and handed over to ICE. This detention comes nearly a year after ICE came to the Island for the first time. A friend of the father and son, who asked to remain anonymous for safety reasons, said the trio had gone out recreational fishing around 5 am on Monday, but were stopped by the Coast Guard within two hours of being out in the water. After being told they were free to go, the Coast Guard came back around 30 minutes later to check on their fishing license. According to the friend, the Coast Guard came back a third time to ask for da Silva Lima’s ID, to which he showed a passport, before taking both him and his son to Woods Hole. LUCE, the grassroots organization, stated in an Instagram post that the pair were taken to the agency’s facility in Burlington, which is where the ICE’s Boston Field Office is located. ICE’s online detainee database doesn’t list whether the father and son are currently held at the Boston Field Office, but The Times has reported in the past that many detainees were held there. The database said to call the agency for details. An ICE representative was not immediately available for comment. Da Silva Lima and his son, who is a Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School student, are originally from Brazil. ICE planned to take the father-son pair to Texas, according to Continued on A7

Porchfest rockin’ the groove of summer Edgartown crowds show up for the third annual music festival. BY EUNKI SEONWOO

torefronts across Edgartown became live performance stages under a dazzlingly bright blue sky as talented Island musicians showcased their lyrical and instrumental craft. Downtown Edgartown shone light on

Why does the high school building project cost so much? As the June 2 Island-wide vote for the costly project nears, high school building committee members posed the question to themselves Tuesday. BY SARAH SHAW DAWSON

he Island is less than two weeks away from voting on its most expensive building project ever. And on the eve of the consequential vote, with only a few more public discussions left on the docket, the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School (MVRHS) building committee posed a question to themselves, one that Continued on A7

musicians who call the Island home at the third annual Porchfest on Saturday. The event drew a lot of attention from the first batch of summer visitors to the Island — from the passersby in front of Rosewater Market to the crowd that grew to spill out

onto the road in front of Eisenhauer Gallery. Some performance locations were farther away from the town’s main hub, and the festivities began with a set by DJ Smooth B at the Martha’s Vineyard Continued on A8

Islander detained on aid flotilla to Gaza Ames Simmons in custody of Israeli officials for a second time in a month. BY SARAH SHAW DAWSON

mes Simmons, a Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School graduate who grew up as an avid sailor on the Island, was placed in custody in Israel after being detained for a second time. He was part of the Global Sumud Flotilla to Gaza, a civilian-led maritime mission that aims to break a naval blockade restricting aid from reaching Palestinian people who live in the Gaza Strip. The initiative has received international attention through the efforts of those aboard the flotilla, and recently, through the advocacy of environmental youth activist Greta Thunberg, who sailed on a mission to Gaza in early 2025, and has more than 21 million fol-

lowers across social media platforms. Like Thunberg, Simmons, 23, was detained by Israeli forces. On Monday, Simmons’ ship was boarded, and he was taken as a prisoner for the second time in a month. Last Friday, Simmons spoke with The Times on a secure call app. Two days later, he said he was planning to go on a hunger strike with his crew if detained by Israel again. On Monday at 8:48 am Eastern Continued on A9 Twenty-three-year-old Islander Ames Simmons on the L'Arq. Simmons was detained by Israeli forces for the second time in a month on Monday.

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