Image Credit: Brian Snyder

Boston, June 4 (RHC)-- In the U.S. state of Massachusetts, protests are continuing in response to the arrest of Brazilian high school student Marcelo Gomes da Silva while he was on his way to volleyball practice over the weekend. 

Students at Gomes’s high school in the Boston suburb of Milford staged a walkout, many wearing their graduation gowns, joining a series of other demonstrations across town in recent days demanding Gomes’s release. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has acknowledged the teen was not the target of the arrest operation but was still taken into custody.  Gomes has lived in the United States since 2012. 

Boston ICE official Patricia Hyde said: "In regard to Marcelo Gomes, he remains in ICE custody. He was not the target of the investigation, but like we have repeatedly said, sanctuary policies put us in a position to go out into communities and look for people.”

A federal judge on Monday ordered the Trump administration to provide the court at least 48 hours’ notice before the teen is transferred out of Massachusetts.

The ICE arrest of another high school student in New York has also sparked widespread outrage.  

Attorneys representing the 20-year-old Venezuelan asylum seeker, identified as Dylan, have filed a habeas corpus petition in a federal court in Pennsylvania, where Dylan is currently detained, urging his release over due process violations. Dylan lives in the Bronx with his mother and two younger siblings.

[ SOURCE: DEMOCRACY NOW ]