The ICE brokers who arrested a Milford pupil over the weekend have been in search of the teenager’s father, a element that emerged Monday as college students on the city’s highschool walked out of sophistication in protest of the federal arrest.
Marcelo Gomes, an 18-year-old honors pupil and member of the college’s volleyball workforce and band, was apprehended by ICE brokers on Saturday whereas driving to observe in his father’s automotive. The teenager was not the topic of their search, immigration officers stated. The daddy remains to be at giant.
“His dad hasn’t turned himself in,” in line with Appearing ICE Director Todd Lyons, who added they sought the daddy based mostly on “law enforcement” intel and each the teenager and pop are within the nation illegally.
The teenager “was not the target of the investigation, but like we have repeatedly said, sanctuary policies put us in a position to go out into communities and look for people,” Boston appearing Area Workplace Director Patricia Hyde stated Monday.
Hyde stated that cities and states that don’t maintain folks in custody following an ICE detention request — as is the case in Massachusetts — make it so ICE brokers have to enter neighborhoods and workplaces to search out folks topic to removing orders.
Once they do this, she stated, typically they discover different individuals who wouldn’t have been caught by immigration officers had brokers not been pressured into the sphere.
“Unfortunately, we had to go to Milford to look for someone else, and we came across (Gomes) and he was arrested,” Hyde stated.
In accordance with Appearing ICE Director Todd Lyons, Gomes’ father entered the nation illegally greater than a decade in the past and introduced his younger son right here below the identical circumstances. Lyons added that he wasn’t suggesting the highschool pupil is a harmful particular person, however since Gomes just isn’t legally allowed to be right here, he needed to be taken into custody.
“We’re not going to walk away from anybody,” Lyons stated. “We enforce all immigration laws.”
Nick Molinari, president of the Milford Lecturers Affiliation stated Gomes’ arrest was each unneeded and mistaken. The 18-year-old junior, he stated, ought to have been attending observe together with his workforce over the weekend, not sitting in federal custody.
“Instead, ICE agents targeted one of our students in a deliberate act of cruelty, traumatizing his family, friends and peers. This is immoral, unnecessary and should be universally condemned. We will not stand by while the rights and humanity of our students are violated,” the union president stated in a press release.
In accordance with Molinari, college students are extra than simply their present immigration standing, and the union stands with “its students and the residents of Milford in opposing this dangerous shift in operations.”
“We are committed to defending every student’s right to learn, grow, and be treated with dignity – no matter where they come from,” Molinari stated.
A whole lot of Milford Excessive college students marched out of sophistication Monday afternoon to protest their classmate’s arrest and name for his launch. They marched behind a banner that learn “free Marcelo” and gathered on the college grounds to chant the identical.
Gomes, in line with ICE officers, stays in federal custody pending an look earlier than an immigration decide.
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