WASHINGTON, D.C. — Staff from U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton’s office escorted State of the Union guest Marcelo Gomes da Silva out of the congressional chamber Tuesday night after a social media post from the Department of Homeland Security targeted the Milford teen.
Gomes da Silva, 19, had been invited to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech by Moulton after Gomes da Silva’s experience last May when he was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Gomes da Silva was brought to the U.S. legally by his family as a child, but his visa eventually expired, something he says he did not know had happened. He was pulled over by ICE last year while driving his father’s car to volleyball practice, as ICE said afterward the agency had been seeking his father.
Gomes da Silva was then arrested on discovery of his lapsed visa and held in the ICE field office at 1000 District Ave. in Burlington for six days. After his release, he described extremely poor and crowded conditions for the detainees inside.
Nearly a year later, Gomes da Silva found himself in the upper gallery of the congressional chambers as Trump delivered what would end up being the longest State of the Union speech by any U.S. president, while Moulton sat with his colleagues down below. As first reported by The Boston Globe, though, less than halfway through the speech at about 9:45 p.m., Gomes da Silva was escorted out of the room by Moulton’s staff due to a social media post by the Department of Homeland Security naming him and Moulton directly.
The X post in question was made by DHS less than an hour before Trump began his speech, and said Moulton “plans to bring illegal alien Marcelo Gomes DaSilva” as his guest.
“Gomes DaSilva is an illegal alien who has no right to be in our nation. We are committed to enforcing the law and fighting for the arrest, detention, and removal of aliens like him,” said the DHS post Tuesday evening.
On Wednesday, Moulton posted a video on Instagram of him talking with Gomes da Silva after the speech, outside with the Capitol building visible in the background. In a comment under that video, Moulton said Trump “could learn a thing or two from Marcelo Gomes da Silva.”
“After sitting through a speech full of lies about immigrants. After DHS tried to intimidate him and we made the call to pull him from the SOTU for his safety. Marcelo didn’t back down,” said Moulton’s comment. “He showed grace, courage, and perspective. Marcelo made some good trouble last night. And I cannot overstate how proud I am of him.”
In that video, Moulton asked Gomes da Silva for his thoughts on the speech, to which Gomes da Silva said he was “pretty disappointed.”
“I can’t say I’m surprised though. Sadly I had to get escorted out because the DHS said that they don’t want an illegal alien like me to be at the State of the Union,” said Gomes da Silva. “It’s pretty disappointing, but at the same time I feel like it kind of saved me some peace of mind, because not a lot of things that he was saying, I agree with.”
Gomes da Silva noted in the video that he was sitting around both people who oppose and support Trump in the gallery.
“There were some people next to me that would stand up and applaud him, and there was also other people that would stay sitting down and actually talk bad about what he was saying. So it’s really interesting to see both parties, both ideas, and see what they think,” said Gomes da Silva.
In a statement issued later Wednesday, Moulton said Gomes da Silva “has been in the U.S. since he was 6 years old. Zero criminal record. You’re not making anyone safer by targeting him. You’re just proving how far you’ll go to terrorize young people trying to build a future in this country.”
Moulton is running against Sen. Ed Markey in the Democratic primary for Markey’s U.S. Senate seat for Massachusetts.
Markey and several representatives from Massachusetts chose to skip Trump’s speech Tuesday, including U.S. Reps. Lori Trahan, Jim McGovern, Katherine Clark and Ayanna Pressley, opting to attend an alternate event dubbed “The People’s State of the Union.”
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