GREAT BARRINGTON - An immigrant and longtime resident of Western Massachusetts was arrested by officials with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency this week, leaving local community members confounded as to why.

Aleks Gole, an Albanian national who relocated to Great Barrington after fleeing violence and unrest abroad, has been living in the Massachusetts town for the past four years. Until this week, he worked as a chef at the Patisserie Lenox on Main Street and was also attending Berkshire Community College to learn English.

But Gole was taken into custody by federal authorities early Tuesday morning, according to The Berkshire Eagle. It is so far unclear why Gole has been incarcerated.

A profile of Gole from 2017 details how he escaped the turbulence of his home country--an ex-Communist nation undergoing political upheaval in the wake of the Cold War--by traveling to Greece during the 1990s. He lived there for years until the 2009 financial crisis made it difficult to find work. It was shortly after this that Gole made the decision to move to the U.S., settling in Great Barrington.

Before his capture, Gole had expressed a seeming desire to stay in the U.S. "I'm a person who always goes forward. I'm not looking back. I never forget who I am, and I have my parents in Albania and my siblings in Greece for vacation. But I have no reason to go back to stay," he said, in an interview with The Eagle.

Gole is allegedly being held in the Greenfield jail. He is alleged to also have legal representation.