Two Democratic Massachusetts lawmakers blasted conditions at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing center where a Milford High School student was held for days after being arrested while on his way to volleyball practice last weekend.
Congressmen Seth Moulton and Jake Auchincloss both toured the Burlington facility on Thursday after Marcelo Gomes Da Silva's release and spoke with the media afterward. Da Silva, 18, who came to the U.S. from Brazil at age 7, was detained by ICE agents Saturday.
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WATCH HEREAuthorities have said the agents were looking for the teen's father, who owns the car Gomes Da Silva was driving at the time and had parked in a friend's driveway.
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SIGN UP "The facilities that Congressman Moulton and I saw are not facilities that anybody should be spending six days in," Auchincloss said. "We know these officers are trying to uphold federal law and operate professionally, but they're not being supported by this administration. Instead of working with Congress to resource it appropriately... he's politicizing it, trying to sow fear amongst Americans."
"We spent quite a good deal of time," Moulton said. "We went to the control center where they oversee the whole facility and asked to go in and see the cells where people are held. We saw a handful of cells, each one of them with a half dozen ore more people in them. They had the Mylar blankets that Marcelo described just to be able to keep warm or sleep in. There were no windows, it's very difficult to even understand the time of day. I think they get one time a day where they're able to make any phone calls, and Marcelo said there was not enough food. They were distributing food when we went in. As Jake said, it's not conditions that anyone would want to live in for more than a few hours."
Auchincloss said the visit reaffirmed his opinion that America's immigration system is broken.
"Seth and I are both Marines, we both operated in austere conditions. I think we have a relatively good sense of it," he said. "The conditions we saw are conditions that would be appropriate for 12 to 24 hours, but not appropriate for someone to be spending a week in."
Gomes Da Silva described the "humiliating" conditions himself following his release Thursday on $2,000 bond. On his wrist, he still wore a bracelet made from the thin sheet of metallic blanket he was given to sleep on the cement floor.
"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."
Gomes Da Silva's lawyer, Robin Nice, said her client was confined to a room holding 25 to 35 men, many twice his age, most of the time he was detained, with no windows, time outside, privacy to use the restroom or permission to shower. Nice said that at one point Gomes da Silva, who is active in his local church, asked for a Bible and was denied.
Massachusetts has one ICE detention facility, in Plymouth, as well as ICE offices in Burlington, where Gomes Da Silva stayed.
It wasn't immediately clear what the Burlington facility's capacity is.
The Plymouth County Correctional Facility was holding 458 men as of Friday, a representative for the office to NBC10 Boston. The number fluctuates — there were 503 on Thursday — with a total of 526 beds.
"We have not experienced overcrowding," spokeswoman Karen Barry said in a statement.
ICE has yet to respond to NBC10 Boston's request for comment about inmate capacity.
Anthony Enriquez, with RFK Human Rights, often meets with detained immigrants with similar or worse stories than Gomes Da Silva's. He said that, rather than blaming a judge's orders, it's the federal government that has a responsibility to provide humane conditions for detainees.
"The reason that this is happening in the first place is because the government is breaking the law and is not holding people and conditions of confinement that are consistent with human dignity," he said.
Asked Friday if she would consider exploring a way to provide adequate space for people trying to fight immigration cases, Gov. Maura Healey said, "Anyone who is held by the federal government or anyone else should be held in conditions that are safe, that are humane and that are don't create a public health risk."
U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said earlier this week ICE officers were targeting a “known public safety threat” when they stopped Gomes Da Silva, and his father “has a habit of reckless driving at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour through residential areas.”
Gomes Da Silva initially entered the country on a visitor visa and was later issued a student visa that has since lapsed, Nice said. He told reporters he didn't know his immigration status until he was arrested.
He said an officer asked him, “Do you know why you were arrested?” He said no.
“I told her, ma’am, I was 7 years old. I don't know nothing about that stuff," he recalled. "I don't understand how it works.”
Nice described him as deeply rooted in his community and a dedicated member of both the school marching band and a band at his church.
The immigration judge set a placeholder hearing date for a couple of weeks from Thursday, but it might take place months from that, Nice said.
“We’re optimistic that he’ll have a future in the United States,” she said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
