Gov. Maura Healey is demanding answers after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested a Massachusetts high school student on Saturday.
“I’m disturbed and outraged by reports that a Milford High School student was arrested by ICE on his way to volleyball practice yesterday,” Healey said in a statement Sunday morning. “Yet again, local officials and law enforcement have been left in the dark with no heads up and no answers to their questions.”
The governor is pressuring ICE to provide information about why the student was arrested, where he is now and “how his due process is being protected,” according to her statement.
The 18-year-old student was detained by ICE agents somewhere off Milford High School’s campus, Milford Public Schools Superintendent Kevin McIntyre said in a Sunday statement. Additionally, a number of Milford parents have also been arrested by federal immigration officers in recent weeks, he said.
“The Milford Public Schools play no part in immigration enforcement and support all of our students and families, including those who are immigrants to the United States. They are members of the community, students in our classrooms, athletes that compete representing Milford, musicians, artists, friends, and neighbors,” McIntyre’s statement reads.
Officials have not released the name of the student who was detained, but his friends and family identified him to WCVB as “Marcello.”
“He’s not a criminal. He’s a member of this community,” his girlfriend, Julianys Rentas told the news station through tears.
Rentas told WCVB she is in contact with her boyfriend, who told her that he is being held in chains with dozens of other men. He is the only teen among them.
Marcello’s friends and family told the news station he has lived in Milford since coming to the U.S. at age six.
“To just separate him from everybody he knows — like his whole life, just because he wasn’t born here — it’s not right,” his cousin, Ana Julia Araujo, told WCVB.
Milford Police Chief Rob Tunsio told the news station his department learned about the arrest from the school district, and that police are now looking into the situation.
