How a Massachusetts town became a flashpoint for Trump's immigration crackdown

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MILFORD, MA − Immigrants in this blue-collar town say they are living in constant fear of ICE raids that have rounded up 1,500 undocumented people throughout Massachusetts.

Among those arrested was Marcelo Gomes da Silva, an 11th grader at Milford High School, whose story has drawn widespread attention for throwing into stark relief immigration enforcement tensions around the country.

"There's been very high levels of anxiety in the community about immigration enforcement for many months," says Milford High School Principal Joshua Otlin.

Gomes da Silva's family, who brought him to the United States from Brazil when he was 7, are just some of the thousands of immigrants from Latin America whose arrival has reshaped Milford in the past two decades. And now their community is in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump's aggressive deportation campaign.

The fear is pervasive throughout the community, says Reggie Lima, a Brazilian American who on a recent day wore a Trump hat in Milford's Padaria Brasil Bakery.

"Every day, it's on the back of everybody's mind. Nobody leaves home today without checking around, checking the windows, to see if ICE is outside," Lima says.

Gomes Da Silva, 18, was arrested by ICE agents on May 31 when he was stopped on his way to volleyball practice. Federal officials said they targeted his father, Joao Paulo Gomes-Pereira, who they say is undocumented and has a history of reckless driving.

The next day, Gomes da Silva's girlfriend and the other seniors at Milford High School graduated under a cloud of angst. Not only was Gomes da Silva − the drummer in the school band performing that day − absent, but so were two of the graduating students and the families of many others.

"A lot of people’s parents were very scared to go to graduation, because there were a lot of false rumors saying that immigration could be around school property," said an 18-year-old Brazilian American who just graduated. Paste BN is withholding the names of high school students interviewed for this story because many members of the community expressed fear that they or their family would be subject to arrest or deportation. 

"It was a very difficult day, but it’s definitely going to be memorable, because right after graduation, the first thing that all my friends did, we walked with our teachers, our friends, in our in caps and gowns − I was in my heels − all the way down to town hall protesting for Marcelo," she said.

"I heard many stories of people who didn't cheer for their children" for fear of being exposed to immigration authorities, said Coleen Greco, mother of a volleyball teammate of Gomes da Silva's.

Gomes da Silva was released June 5 after posting a $2,000 bond set by an immigration judge that afternoon. His arrest drew backlash and condemnation from members of Congress.

An immigrant influx

If Milford isn't Anytown USA, it is at least Anytown New England. The brutalist concrete high school is surrounded by ballfields and a sea of parking. The strip malls are filled with chain restaurants, including three Dunkin' Donuts.

The historic downtown is centered in a wood-frame town hall with a cupola-crowned clock tower. Its environs are filled with wood-siding-clad houses behind small lawns, some protected by white picket fences.

Though the mainline Protestant churches − Episcopal, Methodist, Congregationalist and Unitarian − reflect the British roots of the town's original settlers, a nearby Catholic church demonstrates its more recent immigrant history: Once catering to the Irish and Italians who dominated the population in the 20th Century, it now offers services in Spanish and Portuguese as well as English.

"When I grew up in Milford, Milford was pretty indistinguishable from other suburbs in this part of Massachusetts," said Otlin, who graduated in 1996 from the high school where he's now principal.

Back then, he said, it was "almost exclusively White."

"Today Milford is very, very different than it was. Most of our students identify as something other than white, native-born, English-speaking Americans. Here at the high school, 45% of our families need a translator to communicate with the school."

According to the U.S. Census, 30% of Milford's 30,000 residents are foreign-born. The census undercounts immigrants, who may be afraid to respond to the survey, according to experts and the Census Bureau itself. A 2023 Census Bureau report found 19.8% of noncitizens located in administrative records could not be matched to an address in the 2020 census, compared with 5.4% of among citizens.

Still, census data shows a massive surge in immigration: Since 2000, the Hispanic population and the foreign-born population have tripled in Milford.

Massachusetts might evoke liberal coastal elites, like the ones at Harvard that Trump is attacking with every weapon he can find. But Milford is 30 miles and a world away from the Ivy League campus. Just one-third of adults in Milford have a bachelor's degree, compared with 80% in Cambridge. And while it's easier to find a New York Yankees fan than a Republican in Harvard Yard, 42% of Milford voters went for Trump last year.

"Massachusetts has the 6^th highest foreign-born proportion in the country at 18%," wrote Mark Melnik, a researcher at the UMass Donahue Institute, part of the University of Massachusetts, in an email to Paste BN. "Milford at 30% is higher than Boston (27%)!"

In the late 19th century, the local economy revolved around extracting the town's trademark pink granite, which is found in buildings as far away as Paris. In the mid-20th century, Archer Rubber was a major employer. Now, it’s the health care and biotechnology industry around greater Boston. But even the white-collar economy needs manual laborers to build and maintain the houses and office parks.

"For most of our immigrant families, they're working in the skilled trades, mostly in the construction trades," Otlin said.

And on Main Street, many of the stores feature signage in Spanish and Portuguese and sell products from Latin America such as soccer jerseys and plantain leaves.

Some longtime residents enthusiastically embrace the new diversity.

"They have the best meat markets," Greco said.

And others express their region's trademark tolerance.

"I think he's a folk hero, and I'm behind him," said Tom, a middle-aged White neighbor in a baseball hat, who was passing Gomes da Silva's house on June 6. Gomes da Silva's friends streamed in and out, but no one answered the door for a reporter.

"I think it's no different than when Irish moved in, in the late 1800s, and Italians moved in in the early 1900s," said Tom, a lifelong Milford resident of Irish ancestry who declined to give his last name. "Only the laws have changed, but we're all human."

Immigrants living in fear and hiding

Even before Gomes da Silva was picked up, the already-pervasive fear of immigration authorities led one of Marcelo’s volleyball teammates to be in his car that day.

"The night before, I had asked Marcelo for a ride to practice because, ironically enough, my mother wasn’t going to work that Saturday and she asked me if I could get a ride with a friend because she’s too scared of going outside and driving me to practice," the friend said.

Two days after Trump's inauguration, a rumor circulated in the Milford High School community that ICE would be arresting undocumented immigrants at school the next day. Students say most of the school population was absent that day, including native-born citizens who feared their parents could be arrested while dropping them off or picking them up.

"There was no one in the school, no one," said a 17-year-old female classmate of Gomes da Silva's.

"My parents are the ones who drive me to school, going back and forth, if they were to get stopped on the way there," said the 18-year-old recent graduate, who stayed home from school that day. "Also I was just concerned if (ICE) were to ever follow me back home and see where I live, and just camp out there one day. I was just concerned for the safety of my parents."

"Everywhere is kind of crazy: Chelsea, Framingham," said Lima, the Brazilian American Trump supporter, referring to two other Massachusetts towns with large Latino immigrant populations. "You see (ICE) every day. I saw them this morning.

"Now people are afraid of driving vans with letters on the top, because they are targeting vans and commercial vehicles," said Lima, a construction worker. Because so many of the manual laborers are immigrants, ICE will "see a van with the letters on the top, like roofers," and target it for immigration enforcement, he said.

"People, including me, are very scared to leave their homes and are afraid of getting stopped doing nothing," said Andres, an Ecuadoran immigrant who works in roofing and lives in Milford, in Spanish.

"You don't see people in the streets in the mornings," said Ingrid Fernandes, a Brazilian immigrant who owns Padaria Brasil Bakery. "It's hurt a lot. Almost 80% of my customers aren't coming for two weeks."

"My parents have been afraid to leave the house," said the female classmate of Gomes da Silva's, who is also Brazilian American. "Me and my sister have been doing the shopping because we're citizens."

Others say their families are having groceries delivered. They liken their life to the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Employees at Oliveira's Market, a grocery store selling Brazilian foods in downtown Milford, say business has been unusually slow in recent weeks, since the raids began, because their customers are afraid to go out.

"ICE was looking initially for immigrant criminals; now they are targeting everyone," said an Oliveira's employee who declined to give his name. Speaking in Portuguese via a translator, he added that he knows people who have been detained and deported.

When a White reporter and photographer arrived at Oliveira's Market, a man on his way in from the parking lot turned around and left. At a variety store on Main Street, the elderly Hispanic woman behind the counter was so terrified by journalists asking questions that she began to cry.

Nearly everyone in town had heard about Marcelo's case, and the overwhelming sentiment was sympathetic to him.

"It's a very sad story for everybody," Fernandes said.

His six-day detention featured what his lawyer called "horrendous" conditions, including sleeping on a cement floor with no pillow and only a thin metallic blanket. Meals, he said at a news conference, often consisted of nothing but crackers.

"He seemed thin," said Andrew Mainini, Gomes da Silva's volleyball coach, who saw him the night he was released. "As someone who works out with him and sees him daily, he looked thinner than just six days earlier. And it was pretty noticeable, in his face, specifically."

ICE's media affairs office told Paste BN Gomes da Silva was provided meals, including sandwiches. “He was provided bedding, given access to hygiene, including showers, and had access to his lawyer," Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in an emailed statement.

ICE defends Gomes da Silva's arrest, noting that he wasn't the target of the operation but that anyone in the country illegally is subject to deportation. According to ICE, just over half of the immigrants recently arrested in Massachusetts have criminal convictions in the United States or abroad.

“ICE officers engaged in a targeted immigration enforcement operation of a known public safety threat and illegal alien, Joao Paulo Gomes-Pereira," McLaughlin said. "Local authorities notified ICE that this illegal alien has a habit of reckless driving at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour through residential areas endangering Massachusetts residents.

"Officers identified the target’s vehicle, and initiated a vehicle stop with the intention of apprehending Joao Paulo Gomes-Pereira. Upon conducting the vehicle stop, officers arrested Marcelo Gomes-Da Silva, an illegally present, 18-year-old Brazilian alien and the son of the intended target. While ICE officers never intended to apprehend Gomes-DaSilva, he was found to be in the United States illegally and subject to removal proceedings, so officers made the arrest."

Support for deporting criminals

In 2011, Milford resident Maureen Maloney suffered a horrific tragedy when her 23-year-old son was killed by a drunken driver who was in the country illegally. The driver also had a criminal record for assaulting a police officer in 2008.

Maloney became an advocate for removing undocumented immigrants who commit crimes. She went on to campaign for Trump in 2016 and to serve for four years on the Republican state committee.

In Maloney's view, while what happened to Marcelo is unfortunate "collateral damage," the ICE raids are beneficial because of the criminals they have caught.

"If these raids save only one life or prevent only one more child from being sexually assaulted, it was worth it," Maloney said. "No matter how bad it was for Marcelo, and I'm sure it was traumatic for him, he'd probably rather that than having lost a sibling or been sexually abused as a young child."

Even some Brazilian Americans agree.

"It's needed because we've been having a lot of criminals all over the place," Lima said.

"They (racially) profile. They look at you, you look Spanish, you speak with an accent, yeah: ‘Where’s your papers?’" Lima said. "But it’s complicated. By doing that, they’ve caught like murderers, people who committed crimes in Brazil."

Maloney argues that responsibility for the large number of noncriminals picked up in the ICE raids lies with Healey, the state Legislature and a 2017 state court decision limiting immigration enforcement cooperation with ICE.

"As far as what occurred with Marcelo, this is a direct result of Massachusetts' sanctuary policies and Gov. Healey refusing to cooperate with ICE, because if ICE could apprehend these criminal aliens in a more controlled environment, we wouldn't be having nonviolent, noncriminal aliens being picked up as collateral damage," she said.

Healey disputed those claims in a statement sent to Paste BN by her office.

“Massachusetts law enforcement regularly partners with federal authorities to keep our communities safe," she said. "Our Department of Correction already has an agreement to notify ICE when someone in their custody is scheduled to be released. But instead of focusing on removing criminals, the Trump Administration and ICE are arresting people with no criminal records who live here, work here, and have families here. ICE’s actions are creating considerable fear in our communities and making us all less safe.”

Student-led protests

The high school community responded to its shock and upset over Gomes da Silva's arrest by quickly organizing in opposition to his detention and possible deportation.

On June 2, the first day of classes after Gomes da Silva's arrest, hundreds of students staged a walkout and a rally.

"The students were exemplary," Otlin said. "It was a very emotionally intense experience for the students and everyone who was there to bear witness to it. I've worked in public schools for 25 years; this is my 15th year as an administrator. I've never seen anything like it. Students sobbing and chanting and praying together. Students coming up to the microphone and speaking from their heart to the press and doing so in incredibly powerful ways."

The next day, the boys' volleyball team's playoff volleyball game brought hundreds of students, teachers, and community members in white T-shirts with "Free Marcelo" written on them.

"People came to support the volleyball team and people came to be together," Otlin said. "This was and remains a traumatic event for hundreds of young people and parents and families in our community, and I think people desperately wanted to come together and be together."

The team lost, however.

Coach Mainini said the volleyball team's goal is to support by Gomes da Silva by "maintaining the community."

"Anytime he's with the team, anytime he's active, he's not going to be thinking of the challenges ahead of him," Mainini said. "And that's one of the best things we can offer him."

Meanwhile, other Milford High School students and recent alumni still have to contend with the omnipresent threat of immigration enforcement descending upon their family.

"My parents have had the conversation with me about moving to Brazil, like what would happen in case something were to ever happen," said Gomes da Silva's female classmate. "Me personally, I don't want to go to Brazil, because I've never been there. I don't know what it’s like. This is what I know. This is the only thing I know. I've never really traveled outside the country."

"And like, I don't want to leave my parents, I wouldn’t want to leave my parents, but I'd stay for my last year of high school, to finish high school with my sister. I wouldn't want to leave my mom and dad, but I wouldn't want to leave my home, to leave the United States. And it’s a very scary and weird conversation to have with them.

"Sadly, that's the reality we have to live: I have to think about whether I'm going to come home and my parents won't be there."

Contributing: John Walker and Kevin Theodoro, Paste BN Network