ICE is accusing the Milford teen detained at a facility in Burlington earlier this month of lying about the conditions he said he experienced there.
Marcelo Gomes da Silva’s attorney, Robin Nice, shared a photo with Boston 25 News Sunday of one of the rooms where she said Marcelo was being held while in ICE custody.
During a June 5 press conference, the day Marcelo was released after spending five nights in custody, he spoke about the conditions he said he endured at the facility.
“Sometimes our lunch and dinner would be crackers, and I would share with the people there,” Marcelo said earlier this month. “You sleep on concrete floors.”
In a statement Sunday, a spokesperson for ICE said Marcelo received three meals a day including fresh sandwiches, received prompt off-site medical attention and thanked an officer saying “everyone is so nice”.
“I asked him, ‘Marcelo, did you say this?’, he said ‘no I did not say that,’ so I trust my client, I believe he didn’t say it,” Nice said.
“There were times he might’ve been given food beyond crackers but the only thing he felt was safe to eat and not going to make him throw up was crackers,” Nice continued.
Nice also said Marcelo asked officers for Tylenol to deal with a sore throat and fever but was told there was no medicine available.
On June 5, Marcelo did recognize a couple of people he felt showed him some kindness on the inside.
“She was one of the only nice security guards,” Marcelo said about an officer. “There was this other guy that would let me use the phone at night to talk to my parents, those two people mean the world to me.”
Following a tour of the Burlington facility on June 5, both Representative Jake Auchincloss and Representative Seth Moulton called the condition they saw “inhumane”.
“Yeah, I mean, the facilities that Congressman Moulton and I saw are not facilities that anybody should be spending six days in,” Rep. Auchincloss said.
“For anyone like Marcello that is actually expected to stay here, to sleep here, with no beds, not what anyone else would call a blanket, sparse food, no windows even, it’s obviously completely inappropriate,” Rep. Moulton said.
In ICE’s statement, they also claim Moulton and Auchincloss had no concerns following their tour.
Moulton’s statement to Boston 25 Sunday reads in part, “Putting words in the mouths of federal lawmakers is nothing compared to detaining an 18-year-old for six days on a concrete floor without a window, so I guess that’s what we should expect.”
Marcelo’s case is not the first time someone has complained about the facility in Burlington.
Nice shared with Boston 25 News multiple affidavits from various lawyers citing similar concerns.
In a statement to Boston 25 News, Governor Maura Healey said “As a former Attorney General, public safety is always a top priority for me. ICE should be focusing on those with criminal backgrounds, like they said they were going to do. Instead, they’re doubling down on their arrest of Marcelo Gomes Da Silva, a high school student who came here when he was 6 years old, has been a model member of his community, and has no criminal record. It just doesn’t make sense and it doesn’t make anyone safer.”
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