Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said federal immigration authorities plan to “flood” Boston in response to Mayor Michelle Wu’s refusal to dismantle the city’s sanctuary protections, as ordered by the Trump administration.
Speaking on “The Howie Carr Show” Wednesday, Lyons said his response to Wu’s stated intention to defy the federal order is that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, commonly referred to as ICE, is “going to keep making Boston safe, as she’s failing to do with the sanctuary city policies.”
“We did Operation Patriot March which yielded over 1,000 arrests, and now you’re going to see more ICE agents come to Boston to make sure that we take these public threats out that she wants to let go back in the communities,” Lyons said. “We’re going to keep making America safe.”
Asked by Carr if ICE was planning to “surge” the city of Boston akin to President Donald Trump’s crime crackdown in Washington, D.C, where ICE agents have reportedly appeared alongside the National Guard and federal agents, Lyons said there would be a larger presence in Boston following Wu’s remarks on Tuesday.
“We’re definitely going to … flood the zone, especially in sanctuary jurisdictions,” Lyons said. “Boston and Massachusetts decided to say that they wanted to stay sanctuary. Sanctuary does not mean safer streets. It means more criminal aliens out and about the neighborhood. But 100%, you will see a larger ICE presence.”
Lyons’ radio interview represented one of the first indications of how the Trump administration is reacting to a defiant press conference held by Mayor Wu on City Hall Plaza Tuesday, when she stated that the city has no intention of complying with Attorney General Pam Bondi’s order to dismantle its local sanctuary law.
“The U.S. Attorney General asked for a response today, so here it is,” Wu said at the press conference. “Stop attacking our cities to hide your administration’s failures. Unlike the Trump administration, Boston follows the law, and Boston will not back down from who we are or what we stand for. We will not back away from our community that has made us the safest city in the country.”
Bondi had given Wu a Tuesday deadline to respond to a letter she sent last week to leaders of cities and states identified by the Department of Justice as sanctuary jurisdictions, with an order to “eliminate laws, policies and practices that impede federal law enforcement.”
In Boston, the law on the books enshrining its sanctuary status since 2014 is the Trust Act, which prohibits local police and other city departments from cooperating with federal immigration authorities when it comes to detaining illegal immigrants on civil warrants.
City officials say the law still allows for local cooperation with the feds on certain criminal matters like drug, weapons and human trafficking.
But Lyons said ICE has been finding 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, while again referencing the nearly 1,500 illegal immigrant arrests made during Operation Patriot.
“So not only do we have to go ahead and go after the ones we were targeting, but we have to also deal with jurisdictions releasing criminal aliens in real time while we’re out there working the streets,” Lyons said. “It’s not making anyone safer.”
Lyons also stated that Boston Police, while prohibited in some instances from cooperating with ICE by way of the city’s Trust Act, is often helping federal authorities “behind the scenes,” unbeknownst to Mayor Wu.
Those Boston police officers can’t cooperate openly with ICE out of fear of “getting in trouble or getting fired,” Lyons said.
“That’s the issue we’re seeing in so many jurisdictions,” Lyons said. “We have so many men and women on the Boston Police Department and other jurisdictions that are so pro-ICE, that want to work with us and that are actually helping us behind the scenes.
“And that’s what I think local leaders don’t understand, is they need to talk to the men and women on the ground, because … there are so many of these criminal aliens that keep getting released to go out and commit more crimes that the local law enforcement have to deal with. We can take that violent criminal alien instantly out of the neighborhood,” the ICE director added.
Attorney General Bondi has also threatened to prosecute city officials and withhold federal funds unless Boston cooperates with mass deportations, Wu said at Tuesday’s press conference.
Bondi elaborated on potential consequences for Boston and other identified sanctuary jurisdictions that failed to comply with her directive on a Monday Fox News appearance.
“If they don’t comply with us, we’re going to work with other agencies to cut off their federal funding,” Bondi said. “We are going to send in law enforcement just like we did during the LA riots, just like we’re doing here in Washington, D.C. And if they’re not going to keep their citizens safe, Donald Trump will keep them safe.”
Wu said on a “Java with Jimmy” podcast appearance Wednesday that efforts to cut federal funding to cities that the president dislikes are illegal, as the $300 million in federal funds Boston relies on each year is earmarked through Congress based on census counts that determine how much money is allocated to municipalities.
She also mentioned that, as mayor, she was enforcing a local law, the Trust Act, that had been on the books at the city and state level prior to her administration, since 2014, “and we’ve done fine in that period when it comes to safety.”
At her press conference, Wu said Boston was prepared should the federal government seek to intervene in the city’s law enforcement efforts, while referencing the National Guard deployment in recent months to LA and D.C.
“We also stand with those cities as they sue over his abuse of power,” Wu said. “We have reviewed those cases and we are prepared to stand up for our city’s rights if we need to.”
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