Immigration Authorities Arrest HLS Visiting Professor After October Shooting Incident

Updated December 4, 2025, at 2:37 a.m.

Federal immigration authorities arrested Harvard Law School professor Carlos Portugal Gouvea this week after the State Department revoked his J-1 visa for shooting a pellet gun outside a synagogue in October, the Department of Homeland Security announced Thursday.

Gouvea — a Brazilian citizen and visiting professor at Harvard Law School — was arrested on Oct. 2 after the incident, which took place one day before Yom Kippur. Two weeks later, the DHS revoked his visa, according to the Thursday announcement. Gouvea told police he was hunting rats.

In a press release announcing Gouvea’s arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin described the incident as an “anti-semitic shooting” and “an affront to our core principals as a country.”

“We are under zero obligation to admit foreigners who commit these inexplicably reprehensible acts or to let them stay here,” she wrote.

Within days of the attack, Trump administration officials were quick to cast Gouvea’s actions as an instance of religiously motivated violence.

“Do NOT mess with houses of worship or people of faith in our country. Not on this watch,” wrote Harmeet K. Dhillon, the head of the Department of Justice’s civil rights division, in an Oct. 5 post on X.

Local authorities, however, did not file any bias-related charges at the time of his arrest, and leaders of the nearby Temple Beth Zion synagogue told congregants shortly after the shooting that they did not believe Gouvea’s actions were antisemitic.

“From what we were initially told by police, the individual was unaware that he lived next to, and was shooting his BB gun next to, a synagogue or that it was a religious holiday,” synagogue president Larry Kraus and executive director Benjamin Maron wrote in their email.

McLaughlin did not immediately respond to a request for comment on if the DHS considered statements from local officials before revoking Gouvea’s visa.

Gouvea was charged in the Brookline District Court with vandalizing property and three misdemeanors and initially pleaded not guilty to firing the pellet gun. Three of the four charges were later dismissed as part of a Nov. 13 plea agreement.

Gouvea voluntarily departed the U.S. instead of being deported, according to the DHS’ Thursday announcement.

Days after the shooting, the Harvard Law School placed Gouvea on administrative leave. It is unclear if Gouvea’s standing at the school was later reinstated.

A spokesperson for Harvard did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

​​—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @dhruvtkpatel.

—Staff writer Cam N. Srivastava can be reached at cam.srivastava@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @camsrivastava.