U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched a new surge of immigration enforcement action in Massachusetts, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed Sunday.
The department did not specify how long there would be increased ICE activity around the state.
In May, federal immigration officials said they arrested nearly 1,500 people as part of a month-long crackdown, which they called “Operation Patriot.” The latest surge is being called “Patriot 2.0.”
“Under President Trump and Secretary Noem, nowhere is a safe haven for criminal illegal aliens,” a department spokesperson said in a statement. “If you come to our country illegally and break our laws, we will hunt you down, arrest you, deport you, and you will never return.”
While the statement indicated the enforcement crackdown will encompass all of Massachusetts, they specifically called out Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, claiming so-called “sanctuary policies” in the city “attract and harbor criminals.”
In a response, Wu pointed to the city’s Trust Act, which prohibits Boston police from working with ICE on civil immigration detainers. Under the ordinance, Boston police do cooperate with federal authorities on criminal cases.
A state Supreme Judicial Court ruling also bars law enforcement in Massachusetts from detaining people based solely on a request from federal immigration authorities.
“We expect that federal law enforcement will abide by the constitution and laws of this City, Commonwealth, and country, and we are prepared to take legal action at any evidence to the contrary,” Wu said in a statement.
The U.S. Department of Justice sued the city last week, alleging the Trust Act violates federal law.
Massachusetts has not declared itself a “sanctuary state,” but the state and its capital city have been popular targets of the Trump administration amid pushback against policies that federal officials see as lenient towards immigrants. In a Sunday interview on MSNBC, Gov. Maura Healey reiterated that Massachusetts “is not a sanctuary state.”
“What we have seen from ICE and from the administration really isn’t about public safety. It’s about political theater. It’s about a political power grab and an attempt to intimidate,” Healey said, touting her public safety background as a former attorney general. She added, “It’s about show. It’s about a show of force. It’s about political theater. It’s the same reason you see National Guard now on streets and cities in America. It’s just not right.”
The governor added, “It’s just not right, what’s happening across America right now.”
Healey, a Democrat who faces reelection next year, charged that President Donald Trump is using immigration enforcement as “an effort to distract” people from things including “the abysmal record of the Trump administration on the economy right now.”
Pressed by a host to explain the “strategy” behind saying that Massachusetts is not a sanctuary state, Healey said it’s “just the fact.”
“These are just terms that the Trump administration makes up — guys, that’s what’s going on — to fit into their narrative and to further this political theater,” the governor said.
While Healey has repeatedly slammed ICE’s tactics, she has also called for the federal government to do more to tighten control of the nation’s borders as a way to staunch the influx of migrants.
“I told President Biden that he needed to act on the border and shut it down two years ago, three years ago now. I think that some of what Donald Trump has done on the border makes a lot of sense, right? And the tightening there,” Healey told reporters in May. “I won’t get into specifics. But the general move and recognition that there needed to be more control brought to the border is absolutely correct. And certain things have been done that make a lot of sense.”
With material from State House News Service reporter Colin A. Young.
This article was originally published on September 08, 2025.
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