Two weeks ago Carlos Portugal Gouvea, a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. The event went unnoticed in Canada and left barely a ripple in U.S. media. But two months prior Gouvea, a noted Brazilian gun-control activist and head of the University of São Paulo’s “diversity and inclusion committee”, had been observed wielding what looked like a rifle close by Temple Beth Zion, a synagogue in the Boston suburb of Brookline, during Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
After fleeing security guards, Gouvea was arrested with what turned out to be a pellet gun. He told local police he had been out “hunting rats”; one of his shots had shattered a car window. Within days, Gouvea was charged with four offences, his visa was revoked and a U.S. Department of Homeland Security official denounced “brazen, violent acts of anti-Semitism like this.” In November Gouvea struck a plea deal over his illegal use of the air rifle. Early this month he was re-arrested by ICE and, to avoid the humiliation of deportation, agreed to leave the U.S. “voluntarily”.
