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Massachusetts High Schooler Detained by ICE 
Caught in “Collateral Arrest”

Loaded on July 15, 2025 published in Prison Legal News July, 2025, page 37
Filed under: Arrest and Booking, Immigration, Arrest Warrants. Location: Massachusetts.

A Massachusetts high school student, Marcelo Gomes da Silva, was arrested and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) while driving to volleyball practice in June 2025. The teenager, who was released on bond after six days amid community outcry, described harrowing conditions at the detention facility. 

Gomes da Silva’s lawyer, Robin Nice, said the 18-year-old was held in a room with more than 20 other men, many of whom were twice his age. Nice said Gomes da Silva was not given privacy to use the bathroom and was not permitted to shower in the six days he was held in detention. The teenager called the experience “humiliating” and said he did not immediately understand why he had been arrested. 

Immigration authorities pulled Gomes da Silva over because he was driving his father’s car, and they intended to arrest his father. Instead, Gomes da Silva, who immigrated to the United States from Brazil at age seven, was ensnared in an operation never intended to target him. “While ICE officers never intended to apprehend Gomes da Silva, he was found to be in the United States illegally and subject to removal proceedings, so officers made the arrest,” said U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin in a statement.

The mistaken arrest, which came as Pres. Donald J. Trump (R) seeks to ramp up deportation efforts, shows how people who would not typically be a priority for immigration authorities end up netted amid sloppy enforcement operations.  

 

Source: Associated Press

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