Outcry after Boston teen arrested by Ice agents on way to volleyball practice

Trump administration officials sparked a massive protest on Sunday in a Boston suburb after immigration agents detained a high school student on his way to volleyball practice while they were seeking his father.

The high schooler in question, 18-year-old Marcelo Gomes Da Silva, entered the United States on a student visa, according to a lawsuit filed on his behalf after his arrest. While his student visa status has lapsed, he is eligible for and intends to apply for asylum.

Nonetheless, the head of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) on Monday defended his agency’s actions, saying the teen in question is “in this country illegally and we’re not going to walk away from anybody”.

Gomes was arrested Saturday in Milford, Massachusetts, where he lives.

Ice’s acting director Todd Lyons and Patricia Hyde – who directs the agency’s enforcement and removal operations in Boston – acknowledged Gomes was not the target of the immigration investigation that led to his arrest and that authorities instead were seeking his father, who remains at large.

But the Milford high school student had been driving his father’s vehicle when he was arrested following a traffic stop, Lyons said. Lyons said that when authorities encounter someone in the country illegally, “we will take action on that”.

“We’re doing the job that Ice should have been doing all along,” he said. “We enforce all immigration laws.”

The state’s Democratic governor, Maura Healey, said she was “disturbed and outraged” by Gomes’s arrest. And hundreds rallied in Milford on Sunday to protest Gomes’s detention.

A federal judge issued an emergency order on Sunday preventing authorities from transferring Gomes out of Massachusetts for at least 72 hours in response to his lawsuit arguing that he was unlawfully detained.

Reuters contributed to this report