The 45-year-old Portuguese man had been detained since August 2024, when he was intercepted by public security agents at his residence in the US state of Rhode Island, "based on several outstanding arrest warrants", according to acting US Attorney General Sara Miron Bloom.

According to the prosecutor, at the time of the arrest, the authorities learned that “there were active arrest warrants pending” against the Portuguese man, namely for cocaine trafficking, reckless driving and fleeing the police, as well as for failure to appear at the Kent County Court in Rhode Island. A review of the immigration database carried out by agents from the Department of Homeland Security and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) found that the Portuguese man had already been deported from the United States to Portugal on 3 December, according to a statement from the Rhode Island court. Now, Judge Lincoln D. Almond sentenced the Portuguese man to a six-month sentence, a period that has already been served since his arrest last year, and the process for his second deportation is now underway.

The United States repatriated 69 Portuguese in 2024, nine more than the previous year, according to ICE's annual report.

According to the report, 101 citizens were repatriated to Portugal in 2019, 47 in 2020, 28 in 2021, 33 in 2022 and 60 in 2023. The United States currently has a plan in place to carry out "the largest mass deportation in history", promised by the current President, Donald Trump, during his election campaign.