After being picked up by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in late January and spending nearly seven months in detention, a Bridgton man is back home with his family in Maine.
Marcos Gaspar Da Silva, who is originally from Brazil, has since been granted lawful permanent residency, according to a statement from U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine’s 1st District.
In a telephone interview, Gaspar Da Silva said he’s still trying to process his ordeal, which included several transfers, sleeping on the floor in the cold, a severe tooth infection and limited access to good drinking water. He spent the past five months at an ICE facility in Florence, Arizona, where he could purchase bottled water.
“You have to buy water because the taste is so bad,” he said, although at times he said he got very thirsty.
Gaspar Da Silva was released late last week and arrived back in Maine at the Portland International Jetport, where he was greeted by a group of supporters. He said he’s happy to be home but plans to seek counseling to try to recover from the experience.
“This week I’m going to start talk with psychologist [sic] like to understand what’s going on with me,” he said.
His wife, Alessia, who worked with officials in three states to win his release, said the couple is grateful for the help they received from Pingree’s office, their attorneys and especially from Elizabeth Lee, a Democrat who is running for Congress in Arizona. Lee attended more than half a dozen of Gaspar Da Silva’s court hearings in person.
“And then the judge could see that he had people there who cared, plus me on Webex, and that was a crucial point of being present and there for him,” Alessia said. “And many people are not able to do that.”
Lee also monitored Gaspar Da Silva’s medical status after his blood pressure spiked, ordered him a Portuguese Bible and picked him up at the detention center the day of his release.
“She played a vital role … and has become a part of our family,” Alessia Gaspar Da Silva said.
Now that her husband is home, Gaspar Da Silva worries about what comes next. She said they have a lot of anxiety. Marcos still doesn’t have his green card in hand. He has to get his picture and fingerprints on file and then wait for it to arrive in the mail. For now, all he has are his court papers showing his status.
“But we also have the worry that they’re not checking peoples’ papers until after they [ICE] take them,” Alessia Gaspar Da Silva said. “And even then they’re not.”
Marcos Gaspar Da Silva, who works as a general contractor, had always thought that if he avoided being deported and got out of detention, he could resume his life in Maine. But things are a bit more complicated.
“They released him without his boots, his phone. They kept everything,” Alessia Gaspar Da Silva said. “He doesn’t even have his passport.”
On the plus side, Alessia said Marcos is craving coffee, bacon, eggs and cheese, foods he missed while he was in detention. He’s just having trouble digesting it all, she said, one of the many challenges of readjustment.
In a statement, Pingree said she was “overjoyed” that Marcos Gaspar Da Silva had been granted legal, permanent status and had been released from detention.
“At a time when good news can be hard to come by, victories like this feel especially sweet,” she said.
Pingree also pledged to keep fighting for every person who is “on a legal pathway and simply seeking safety and a better life for their family.”
This story appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.