Federal immigration officials intend to flood Boston in reaction to Mayor Michelle Wu’s reluctance to remove the city’s sanctuary protections, as directed by the Trump administration, according to Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons.
Speaking on The Howie Carr Show on Wednesday, Lyons responded to Wu’s declaration that she intended to disobey the federal order by saying that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, would continue to keep Boston secure because she isn’t following the sanctuary city regulations.
We conducted Operation Patriot March, which resulted in more than 1,000 arrests, and additional ICE officers will be visiting Boston to ensure that we remove these threats from the public that she wishes to return to the communities, Lyons stated. We will continue to protect America.
Following Wu’s comments on Tuesday, Lyons responded that there would be a greater presence in Boston when Carr asked if ICE was planning to surge the city like President Donald Trump’s crime crackdown in Washington, D.C., where ICE agents have reportedly appeared alongside the National Guard and federal agents.
“We will undoubtedly flood the area, particularly in sanctuary jurisdictions,” Lyons stated. Massachusetts and Boston agreed to declare their desire to remain in sanctuary. Safer streets are not synonymous with sanctuary. It implies that there are more illegal aliens in the area. However, there will undoubtedly be more ICE present.
One of the earliest signs of the Trump administration’s response to Mayor Wu’s defiant press conference on Tuesday on City Hall Plaza, in which she declared that the city has no intention of following Attorney General Pam Bondi’s directive to repeal its local sanctuary law, was Lyons’ radio interview.
“This is the response that the U.S. Attorney General requested today,” Wu stated during the news conference. Quit targeting our cities to cover up the shortcomings of your administration. Boston is law-abiding and will not compromise on its values or identity, in contrast to the Trump government. Our community has made us the safest city in the nation, and we won’t give up.
In response to a letter she wrote last week to the leaders of states and cities designated as sanctuary jurisdictions by the Department of Justice, directing them to remove laws, policies, and practices that obstruct federal law enforcement, Bondi had given Wu until Tuesday to reply.
The Trust Act, which has been in effect since 2014 and has established Boston’s sanctuary status, forbids local law enforcement and other city departments from assisting federal immigration officials in the detention of undocumented immigrants under civil warrants.
According to city officials, municipal collaboration with the federal government on some criminal problems, including as drug, weapon, and people trafficking, is still permitted by law.
However, citing the nearly 1,500 illegal immigrant arrests made during Operation Patriot, Lyons said that ICE has been discovering that the state of Massachusetts, including Boston, has been ignoring ICE detainers or releasing criminal aliens convicted of crimes in the United States and abroad back into society.
According to Lyons, “we have to deal with jurisdictions releasing criminal aliens in real time while we’re out there working the streets, in addition to going ahead and going after the ones we were targeting.” No one is getting any safer as a result.
Lyons added that Boston Police frequently assist federal officials behind the scenes, without Mayor Wu’s knowledge, even though they are sometimes barred from doing so by the city’s Trust Act.
According to Lyons, those Boston police officers are afraid of facing consequences or losing their jobs, thus they are unable to work freely with ICE.
Lyons stated, “That’s the problem we’re seeing in so many jurisdictions.” The Boston Police Department and other jurisdictions have a large number of pro-ICE men and women that wish to collaborate with us and are actively supporting us in the background.
There are a lot of these criminal aliens that are freed to commit more crimes that local law enforcement must deal with, and that’s what I believe local leaders don’t understand: they need to speak with the men and women on the ground. The ICE director went on, “We can remove that violent criminal alien from the neighborhood right away.”
Wu stated at the press conference on Tuesday that Attorney General Bondi has also threatened to withdraw federal funds and bring charges against city leaders unless Boston cooperates with mass deportations.
During a Monday Fox News appearance, Bondi went into further detail about the possible repercussions for Boston and other designated sanctuary counties who disregarded her order.
“We’re going to work with other agencies to cut off their federal funding if they don’t comply with us,” Bondi stated. like we are doing here in Washington, D.C., we will deploy law enforcement, just like we did during the riots in Los Angeles. Donald Trump will ensure the safety of his constituents if they are unable to do so.
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Wu stated during an appearance on the Java with Jimmy podcast on Wednesday that attempts to stop federal funding from cities the president disapproves of are unlawful because Congress allots the $300 million in federal funds Boston receives annually based on census data that determines how much money is given to municipalities.
She said that as mayor, she was implementing the Trust Act, a local statute that had been in effect since 2014 at the state and municipal levels before her administration, and that we had done well in terms of safety during that time.
Wu mentioned the National Guard’s recent deployment to LA and D.C. during her press conference, saying Boston was ready should the federal government want to get involved in the city’s law enforcement activities.
Wu added, “We also support those cities in their lawsuit against him for abusing his power.” We have looked over such examples, and if necessary, we are ready to defend the rights of our city.
