Marcelo Gomes Da Silva wore a brown tee shirt, a “Free Marcelo” sticker, shorts and Crocs as he stood in front of a large number of reporters after his release from federal immigration detention.
The 18-year-old Milford High School student was released from a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Burlington, Massachusetts, after six harrowing days.
“I don’t wanna cry — but I wanna say that that place is not good,” were his first public comments.
Gomes Da Silva first went to McDonald’s to eat chicken nuggets and fries, then met U.S. Reps. Jake Auchincloss, whose district includes Milford, and Seth Moulton in the parking lot of the Burlington field office where media gathered.
“I’m extremely happy. All glory goes to God,” said the high school junior.
Immigration judge Jenny Beverly granted Gomes Da Silva’s release in a Thursday hearing.
Beverly set the bail amount for $2,000. His attorney, Robin Nice, said it’s unlikely he will be detained by ICE again while on bond.
“We’re thrilled that he’s released,” Nice said in an interview with GBH News. “We appreciate that the judge said basically the lowest bond that she could, which is obviously appropriate in this case, but obviously he shouldn’t have been detained in the first place and it’s gonna be a long road ahead.”
In the press conference, Gomes Da Silva said he was stopped by federal agents as he pulled his car into a friend’s home before volleyball practice.
“I was in shock. I didn’t know what was going on,” he recounted. “He said, 'do you know why you’re under arrest?’ I said, 'no, I don’t.’”
“He said 'because you’re illegal, you’re an immigrant.’ He gave no reason he stopped me, no reason for a traffic stop, and apparently they say they’re trying to get my dad — but I’m here.”
Gomes Da Silva said one kind female ICE officer spoke to him and said he had overstayed his visa, saying he arrived in the U.S. in 2013, and it had expired in 2015.
“Ma’am, I was 7 years old,” he said he told the officer.
In spite of multiple erroneous reports from ICE that Gomes Da Silva had been transferred to a facility in Plymouth, he was held only at the Burlington ICE office. During his stay there, he said he helped others with translation, since he speaks English, Spanish and Portuguese.
“They’d come in there with their papers and say, 'Can you translate this for me cause I don’t wanna sign something and get deported?’”
He described sleeping on concrete floors, using the bathroom in a large room with dozens of other men.
“It’s humiliating — I just felt embarrassed for everyone else,” he said.
Moulton, whose district includes the Burlington ICE office, spoke to the crowd saying he and Auchincloss would tour the facility to figure out “what the hell is going on.”
“We support securing our borders, we support following the law, but this administration is breaking the law,” he said. “This administration isn’t keeping us safe by putting 18-year-old honors students in prison.”
“This is not what law and order looks like,” added Auchincloss.
Earlier on Thursday, over 120 people gathered outside the Chelmsford court in support of Gomes Da Silva — including dozens of teenagers from Milford High School.
Gomes Da Silva, who was born in Brazil, has lived in the United States since he was 5 years old, an attorney for his family said. He has no criminal record. The high school junior plays on the volleyball team and was detained while driving to practice over the weekend.
Julianys Rentas, 18, and her parents had waited outside of the Chelmsford courthouse. She said she and Gomes Da Silva have been dating for almost two years.
“Of course what they did was an injustice. It was unfair. He’s not a criminal. He should have never been their target. It just wasn’t right. The way he’s being treated is not correct,” Rentas said.
Fellow players from Gomes Da Silva’s volleyball team also gathered with his jersey number 10 hand-drawn on white T-shirts.
Giovanni Guilarducci plays volleyball with him and said they’ve “grown close” over the past couple of years.
“He’s a really good kid and he deserves all the support he can get. The experiences he’s been through ... it can really change a person,” he said.
The next hearing for Gomes Da Silva’s immigration case is unlikely to take place for at least three months.
Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, said Wednesday that when Gomes Da Silva was taken into custody, ICE agents had actually been looking for his father, who she says has a history of speeding at more than 100 miles an hour.
The father, João Paulo Gomes-Pereira, had a driving infraction dropped by a judge in 2023 and paid a $100 fine for failing to stop or yield on the road. He does not have other pending criminal charges, court records show.
In a video released by the family yesterday, Gomes-Pereira addressed ICE agents directly: “I love my son, we need Marcelo back home,” he said. “We love America. Please bring my son back.”
Gomes Da Silva addressed questions about his father at the press conference.
“I heard a lot of people talking badly about my dad but if you wanna talk badly about my dad, you have to talk badly about me cause he raised me,” he said. “If I have so much support from everyone from my town, he doesn’t deserve any hate because I was raised from him. He’s a good person, never did anything wrong.”
He said he hopes his father isn’t detained.
“My dad would call me at night with brother and sister and he wouldn’t stop crying. Why? There’s no reason for this,” Gomes Da Silva said, shaking his head.
For now, he wants to get home to his mini poodle at home, who he said he can’t wait to hug, and see his girlfriend and family.
“Firstly, I wanna do whatever I can —obviously I want to tell my story, but my dad always told me to put other people first — I want to get them as much help as possible,” he said of the other men he was detained with.
