BURLINGTON, Mass. — Boston 25 News is looking into questions about the zoning of the Burlington ICE detention facility, where a Milford High School student was recently held for five nights.
Burlington Select Board Chair Mike Espejo said the facility is not zoned to hold people for more than a couple of hours.
“The facility is zoned to be pretty much an office building,” Espejo said.
According to Espejo, the ICE facility on District Avenue has residents in town worried, including himself.
“My concerns now are just making sure people are treated fairly and humanely,” Espejo said.
Boston 25 News reached out to ICE about the zoning and is waiting to hear back.
18-year-old Marcelo Gomes da Silva was kept in ICE custody for five nights and the day he was released, June 5, he said he didn’t shower, slept on the floor, and sometimes only ate crackers for lunch and dinner.
“It’s frustrating and disheartening to hear it’s happening in our town,” Espejo explained.
Espejo said it caused an uprising in town when the ICE facility first opened back in 2008 and a special town meeting was called.
“We were reassured by ICE that it would only be a processing facility and nobody would be detained there overnight,” Espejo explained further.
There was an agreement where Espejo said if someone came in late and had to be held overnight, they would be moved to a secured jail or another facility.
The building is just around the corner from the Burlington Mall.
“Putting it across from a shopping mall kind of makes the contrast really apparent, people are going about their days while people are being held way longer than they should,” Massachusetts resident Nathan Vandyke said.
Meanwhile, Espejo said the town is doing what it can do to find out why Marcelo and others have been kept there overnight, some for several days.
In some ways, Espejo said he feels helpless.
“Because jurisdiction I think is superseded by the federal laws over the local laws in this case, but we’re trying to work with town counsel to see if there’s anything at all we can do as far as enforcing zoning violations or board of health, get the board of health in there to at least see that it’s at least see that its sanitary for overnight use,” Espejo said.
Several people in Burlington told Boston 25 News that they are upset with the facility regarding its conditions and people being kept there for days but they were too nervous to speak about it publicly.
Again, Boston 25 News reached out to ICE for comment about the zoning of the building and is waiting to hear back.
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