A high school student from Milford, Massachusetts, who was detained by immigration authorities has been released on bond.
Marcelo Gomes Da Silva, 18, was given a $2,000 bond by an immigration judge at a Thursday hearing. He has since been released from custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
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WATCH HEREHe made a triumphant homecoming Thursday night, with family and friends waiting to welcome him back.
"The only thing I wanted to do when I got back here was hug my parents, my dad," Gomes Da Silva said.
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The emotional embrace of the father and son was caught on camera.
"I'm feeling happy now," his father said.
Gomes Da Silva was detained by ICE while on his way to volleyball practice last weekend. ICE said his father was the intended target.
"He's, like, in a prison now himself," Gomes Da Silva said. "And thank God it's in his own house, but like, he knows that if he leaves, there's a chance that ICE would try to find him."
After his release, the teenager spoke at a press conference alongside Reps. Seth Moulton and Jake Auchincloss, both Democrats from Massachusetts.
"At the end of the day, this place, it's not a good spot to be. Nobody should be in here," he said. "Most people down there are all workers, they all got caught going to work. These people have families, man, like, they have kids to go home to. And there's genuine criminals out there that people aren't giving attention to, they're getting good people that don't deserve to be here."
He explained that he was in handcuffs since he arrived at the facility, and was in a small room "with a bunch of 35-year-old men." He said he served as a translator for other detainees, as he speaks English, Spanish and Portuguese.
"They would come in there with their papers, and they would say, 'Can you translate this for me? Cause I don't want to sign something and get deported.' And a lot of those papers, I would have to look back at them and be like, 'You're being deported, like, they're taking you out of the country.' And I would have to watch people cry," he said. "People with kids, 10-month-old babies. No one deserves to be down there. You sleep on concrete floors."
"We came up from Washington ... to try to understand what the hell is going on," Moulton said. "We support securing our border, we support following the law. But this administration is breaking the law. This administration is not keeping us safe by putting 18-year-old honors students in prison."
Gomes Da Silva also talked about his faith.
"For me to say the pledge of allegiance at my school every single day and not have a Bible at a federal agency place, it's horrible, it doesn't make sense to me," he said.
He elaborated on that message, and how he cared for others in the detention center, later Thursday.
"Every time people would need food there -- I'm younger, I have a smaller stomach -- so would give food to anybody, because they're all like 35-year-old adults," Gomes Da Silva said, flanked by family and friends. "And I would tell them about God, like how Jesus would share all the time."
"This is not what law and order looks like. My constituents in Milford support secure borders, they support their local police department. They support deporting individuals who are a threat to public safety. They do not support harassing a high school student carpooling to his volleyball practice, who's an honors student, who is a member of his high school band," Auchincloss said. "That does not make the community safer. This administration has its public safety priorities backwards."
Gomes Da Silva disputed the notion that he doesn't belong in his hometown.
"I grew up in Milford," he said. "That's my home. That's the only place I'd call home. I don't see myself anywhere else but Milford, just as my parents."
He posted a selfie to his Instagram account upon his release, writing, "6 days no shower. You all mean the world to me."
"Jesus Christ #1," Gomes Da Silva added in the post.
After speaking alongside the teenager, Moulton and Auchincloss toured the facility themselves to see the conditions.
"The facilities that Congressman Moulton and I saw are not facilities that anybody should be spending six days in," Auchincloss said.
"We saw a handful of cells, each one of them with half a dozen or more people in them," Moulton added. "They are not conditions that anyone would want to live in for more than a few hours."
Auchincloss said the visit only reaffirmed his opinion that we have a broken immigration system.
Gomes Da Silva's lawyer said they were surprised to learn in court that he'd been transferred to the Plymouth Detention Center from Burlington, where he has to be returned to be released. However, a representative for the Plymouth County Sheriff's Office said Gomes Da Silva was never there.
Gov. Maura Healey said she was relieved that the student was set to return home.
"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," Healey said in a statement.
"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," the governor added.
Thursday's hearing came after another earlier in the week, where a judge denied a push by federal authorities to move Gomes Da Silva out of state to a facility in Rhode Island. That hearing afforded his attorneys the chance to meet with Marcelo.
They've said he’s been having health issues in custody, sleeping on a concrete floor in a holding cell with about 25 other men, and then was essentially put in solitary confinement to give him more space.
They said that, even with everything he’s going through, Gomes Da Silva was more worried about missing finals and asking how his volleyball team did in the playoffs.
But his biggest concern was getting home to his family.
“He is obviously not a threat to society, this kid is clean as a whistle, no interactions with police ever, no problems at school, anything, and also that this is his home. This is his only community he’s ever had, he’s been here since age 7," said Robin Nice, one of Gomes Da Silva's attorneys, ahead of the hearing.
“If this whole thing is supposed to be about protecting the community, what purpose is that serving? This kid doesn’t pose a danger to the community, he’s a beloved, valued member of the community, member of his church, member of his volleyball team, member of his school, it just doesn’t compute," said Miriam Conrad, who is also representing Gomes Da Silva.
Gomes Da Silva's father said his son had an F-1 visa that they did not renew.
“Our life is here in the United States," Joao Paulo Gomes-Pereira said. "We have no desire to return to our home country. We are here, we love this place, we love this nation, and we actually want to keep doing good for Americans, as we have done until now.”
ICE said the teen's father was the intended target, wanted for driving in excess of 100 miles an hour in a residential zone. But his attorneys say that no longer seems accurate.
“It sounds very targeted, they knew what they were doing, it wasn’t like they were just looking for dad, he got confused, it sounds like they were doing some sort of rounds," Nice said.
“And it also sound like they followed him from his house to his friend’s house where they blocked him in in the driveway, so presumably if they were watching the house, they would have seen him come out and they would have known he was an 18-year-old kid with braces on his teeth, not his father, so the whole thing is just very odd," Conrad added.
The community has rallied in support of Gomes Da Silva, with more events scheduled Thursday afternoon in Chelmsford, then at Milford High School, and finally in Plymouth.
Tuesday night, during the Milford High School boys’ varsity volleyball playoff game that Gomes Da Silva was supposed to be competing in, his teammates and the community rallied in support of him, wearing white shirts, urging authorities to “Free Marcelo.”
