High Schooler's Six-Day ICE Detention Sparks Outrage
Late last month, an 18-year-old Massachusetts high schooler named Marcelo Gomes da Silva became one of the thousands of people nationwide who have been taken into ICE custody. Gomes da Silva was arrested on his way to volleyball practice by agents who were looking for his father, according to CBS News. His lawyer says he entered the country legally from his home country of Brazil, but holds a long-expired student visa.
"I was seven years old. I don't know nothing about that stuff. I don't understand how it works," Gomes da Silva said of renewing his visa.
Outside the detention facility after his release on bond from an immigration court judge, Gomes da Silva spoke to the media about the conditions he and other detainees experienced inside. He had been held in ICE's Boston field office in Burlington, Massachusetts; some lawmakers say the facility is being used improperly and that detainees are subjected to "abysmal" conditions there.
"That place — it's not good. It's not good," the teen says in a clip of his interview posted by NBC10 Boston.
"Ever since I got here, they had me in handcuffs. They put me downstairs, and I was in a room with a bunch of 35-year-old men," he says, adding that they put around 40 men in a small room.
"We would barely get any attention from the people there. It'd be really hard. I haven't showered in six days, I haven't done anything," Gomes da Silva says. He told reporters that the only thing he could do was "thank God every day" and talk to other detainees about the Bible.
"At the end of the day, this place isn't— it's not a good spot to be. Nobody should be in here," he goes on. "Most people down there are all workers. They got caught going to work. And these people have— these people have families, man, like they have kids to go home to," he says, getting choked up.
You can watch NBC's full clip of Gomes da Silva's interview here.
In another video prior to his release, a spokesperson for Gomes da Silva's family told media that there were "no beds" and "no food," and that he was "eating a lot of crackers."
The top comment read that "anyone can tell he's a good kid" and told Gomes da Silva that "God is using your life" in Portuguese.
"I agree with him: nobody should be in there," one person commented.
"No human should be treated like this," another wrote.
One person recapped the teenager's case, wondering why his detention was necessary. "He's a student, he's not a threat," they wrote. "But this is how our system treats young people who've grown up here, as if they're disposable."
This person called Gomes da Silva's arrest and detention "A trauma he did not deserve," adding that "This is Trump's America."
And finally, someone wrote, "i cant wrap my mind around people looking at another living and breathing human being and calling them 'illegal' and an 'alien' when most of them have never done anything wrong to you or the community."
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