Photo: Chaiel Schaffel/WBZ NewsRadio
Updated 9:50 p.m.
MILFORD, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — A Milford teenager has been released from an ICE detention center on a $2,000 bond after being detained by ICE last week.
Marcelo Gomes da Silva, a junior at Milford High School, was arrested on May 31 while picking up a friend on his way to volleyball practice. He was then taken to a detention center in Burlington, where he spent the week.
A crowd of more than a hundred Milford High School students and other supporters, many holding signs and chanting, waited anxiously outside the Chelmsford Immigration Court where Gomes da Silva appeared by video from a detention center in Plymouth. Cheers erupted from the crowd minutes into the hearing, after a federal immigration judge moved to grant him bond. Mere hours later, Gomes da Silva was released from a Burlington ICE detention center, decrying the conditions in the center and telling the press the people he met inside were generally good people.
Outside court, one of Gomes da Silva's attorney, Robin Nice, told reporters the 18-year-old was in good spirits considering the circumstances.
"This kid has been sleeping on a cement floor for five days. No access to a shower. He's brushed his teeth twice. He's sharing a room with men twice his age," she said. "It's people like Marcelo who are the fabric of our community. So what are we doing here? We have other actual problems to solve. Marcelo is not a problem," she said.
Gomes da Silva has no criminal record, and was taken by ICE as a "collateral" arrest. During a press conference on Monday, ICE announced that their target was not the high school junior, but his father. Gomes da Silva was driving his father's car at the time of the arrest. Nice disputed the government's narrative, saying that the arresting officers in Marcelo's case did not bother to check who they were arresting, and in-fact may have targeted him specifically.
"I would assume that they can tell the difference between an 18-year-old kid and his dad...I think they're trying to terrify us," she said.
According to court filings, Gomes da Silva has been living in the U.S. with his family on a valid student visa that has since lapsed. Protestors gathered in Milford every day since the teen was taken into custody. Nice had strong words for ICE, as she praised the protestors who showed up to the hearing, through she said they should not have had to be there in the first place.
"These kids should be celebrating graduation, and prom. They should be doing kid stuff, and it is a waste and a travesty of our judicial system to have to go through this...Know your rights, and know the rights of other people. Because even if you are a U.S. citizen, we all have an obligation to speak up when we see garbage like this," she said.
Earlier this week, a federal judge denied ICE's request to have Gomes da Silva transferred to an out-of-state facility.
Governor Healey issued a statement following the judge's order to release Gomes da Silva on bond.
“I’m relieved that Marcelo will be returning home to his parents, siblings, classmates and the Milford community. This has been such a traumatic time for this community, and I hope that they find some solace in knowing that the rule of law and due process still prevail. Marcelo never should have been arrested or detained, and it certainly did not make us safer. It’s not okay that students across the state are fearful of going to school or sports practice, and that parents have to question whether their children will come home at the end of the day. In Massachusetts, we are going to keep speaking out for what’s right and supporting one another in our communities.”
WBZ's Chaiel Schaffel (@CschaffelWBZ) reports: