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ICE touts arrests of almost 1,500, gives update on detained Milford student
More than half of the people detained in a monthlong operation had "significant" criminal charges, but many others, including a Milford teen, apparently posed little or no threat to the public.
Federal officials from ICE and other agencies announced Monday that a monthlong operation in Massachusetts resulted in the detainment of almost 1,500 people, who the government called “criminal” and “illegal aliens.”
This “whole of government” initiative, which officials dubbed “Operation Patriot,” follows weeks of residents reporting, and sometimes resisting, more prominent ICE activity throughout the state. The latest flashpoint came Saturday, when authorities detained 18-year-old Marcelo Gomes Da Silva. The Milford High School student was detained on his way to volleyball practice after ICE agents pulled over a car full of students.
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When asked about Gomes Da Silva, officials said that he poses no danger to the public, but was arrested as authorities searched for his father. They detained Gomes Da Silva because he was in the country illegally. Gomes Da Silva was reportedly brought to the U.S. as a 5-year-old.
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At a press conference Monday morning, federal officials touted their work detaining a significant number of alleged drug traffickers, murderers, sex offenders, and foreign fugitives. A total of 1,461 people were arrested, and 790 of those people “were charged with or convicted of crimes in the US or abroad,” according to authorities. Members of criminal organizations like MS-13 and Tren de Aragua were included in the arrests, they said.
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Of the people apprehended during the past month, 277 had previously been deported from the US but refused to comply and remained in the country illegally, officials said.
ICE highlighted a number of specific individuals detained in the operation with notable, and often violent, criminal histories in a press release.
Federal authorities continued to blame local officials for failing to honor ICE detainer requests through so-called sanctuary policies. They said this despite the fact that the state’s highest court ruled in 2017 that local authorities cannot detain people based solely on these detainer requests, even if they wanted to.
Officials insisted that ICE activity would remain high throughout Massachusetts despite any potential non-cooperation from local authorities.
“To any criminal alien offenders victimizing Massachusetts residents, ICE is not going away. We are coming for you,” ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Boston acting Field Office Director Patricia Hyde said. “While we covet a mutually beneficial cooperative relationship with our state and local partners, we will work around them when it becomes necessary to ensure the safety and security of Massachusetts.”
Daily enforcement operations will continue in Massachusetts communities “24/7,” Michael Krol, Special Agent in Charge for Homeland Security Investigations New England, said. Authorities from ICE, the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Coast Guard helped with arrests over the past month, and all those agencies are expected to continue working to fulfill President Trump’s mass deportation promises.
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ICE agents and their partners have faced increased resistance, and sometimes outright hostility, from residents in Massachusetts. One of the most high-profile instances came in early May, when a Worcester street descended into chaos as locals surrounded ICE agents making an arrest. More recently, ICE agents threatened to arrest a woman recording them in Plymouth who accused them of acting illegally.
Krol issued a warning to anyone trying to obstruct operations or threaten agents.
“We have been, and will continue to be, working with the U.S. Attorney’s office to investigate and prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law. Our job is to uphold the Constitution, and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” he said.
Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, was leaving the press conference when a reporter asked him about the use of masks by his agents. He turned around and returned to the podium to answer it.
Lyons said his agents wear masks because they and their families have been doxxed and “targeted” with death threats.
“I’m sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks, but I’m not going to let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line, their family on the line because people don’t like what immigration enforcement is,” he said.
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“Is that the issue here that we’re just upset about the masks?” he asked the room of journalists. “Or is anyone upset about the fact that ICE officers’ families were labeled terrorists?”
‘I didn’t say he was dangerous’
Officials did answer questions about Gomes Da Silva, who remains in ICE custody. He was not the target of the investigation, Hyde said. But sanctuary policies force ICE agents to go out into communities to search for specific people, and undocumented immigrants who they find in the process are arrested, she said, even if they are not the target.
“He’s 18 years old, he’s unlawfully in this country. And unfortunately, we had to go to Milford to look for someone else and we came across him and he was arrested,” Hyde said.
Gomes Da Silva’s father was the target of the operation, and Gomes Da Silva was driving a vehicle that was registered to his father when it was pulled over, according to Lyons.
“I didn’t say he was dangerous. I said he’s in this country illegally,” Lyons said of Gomes Da Silva.
When pressed for more information by reporters, Lyons equated the situation with Gomes Da Silva to a hypothetical scenario involving an 18-year-old “habitual traffic offender.” He said that multiple 18-year-olds are arrested every day, and questioned why media members were so focused on Gomes Da Silva.
In response to Gomes Da Silva’s arrest, Gov. Maura Healey said that local officials were being “left in the dark” and demanded more information from ICE.
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Community members, politicians, and advocates gathered in Milford over the weekend to protest the arrest of Gomes Da Silva, who they said is a well-liked honors student who has been in the Milford Public Schools system since he was 6.
Just before Gomes Da Silva’s arrest, Attorney General Andrea Campbell released a “know your rights” guide designed to help immigrant families understand how to interact with ICE. She accused the agency of “pulling people who present no public safety threat out of their cars in broad daylight” and spreading fear in Massachusetts communities.
Earlier this year, Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan threatened Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York after her office hosted a similar “know your rights” webinar. Homan has not been shy about picking fights with prominent politicians in Massachusetts, and it remains to be seen if he will similarly threaten Campbell.
The full press conference appears below:
Some material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
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