The Boston Police Department (BPD) revealed Monday how many requests to detain suspected illegal immigrants it received and ignored under the city’s sanctuary city law last year, according to a report.
The law enforcement agency is required to assemble a report each year explaining how well it followed the city’s Trust Act. The report, filed to City Council on Monday, said the Boston Police Department received 12 requests from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement throughout 2022, The Boston Herald reported. The report gave few details for each request besides the date it occurred and which precinct received it. For each, the Boston Police Department wrote, “It was not acted upon per the Boston Trust Ordinance.”
The report said “zero individuals” were detained by Boston police officers or transferred to ICE last year under immigration detainers, and there were no cost reimbursements from ICE for related efforts.
“The Boston Police Department remains committed to the Boston Trust Act and strengthening relationships with all our communities,” BPD Commissioner Michael Cox wrote in the report, according to The Herald. “Boston’s immigrant community should feel safe in reporting crime and in proactively engaging with the Boston Police Department.”
Carlos, a Venezuelan migrant, waves to volunteers before boarding a bus to the Vineyard Haven ferry terminal outside of St. Andrew’s Parish House. Two planes of migrants from Venezuela arrived suddenly two days prior causing the local community to mobilize and create a makeshift shelter at the church.
(Carlin Stiehl for The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
Originally signed into law in 2014 by former Mayor Martin Walsh, the Boston Trust Act says “local law enforcement shall not detain a person solely on the basis of a civil immigration detainer request issued by a federal immigration officer, or an administrative warrant issued by a federal immigration officer.”
In December 2019, under current Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, an amendment distinguishes between ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations division from its Homeland Security Investigations division (ICE-HSI). That means while the BPD would not be able to work with ICE-HSI solely for civil immigration enforcement purposes, “work would continue on matters of significant public safety importance such as combatting human trafficking, child exploitation, drug and weapons trafficking, and cybercrimes,” City Hall said at the time.
Without responding to the exact figures in Monday’s report, a Boston ICE spokesperson said, “Detainers are a critical public safety tool because they focus enforcement resources on removable noncitizens who have been arrested for criminal activity,” according to The Herald.
Todd Lyons, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Field Office Director talks with his agents after they made three arrests on Sept. 25, 2019 in Revere, Massachusetts.
(Matt Stone/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images)
“Detainers increase the safety of all parties involved ([immigration enforcement] personnel, law enforcement officials, the removable noncitizens, and the general public) by allowing an arrest to be made in a secure and controlled custodial setting as opposed to at-large within the community.”
Last week, Massachusetts’ Barnstable County Sheriff’s Office ended an agreement with ICE that gave deputies the authority to enforce federal immigration laws, civil rights attorneys said Wednesday.
The Barnstable department was the last sheriff’s office in New England with such an agreement, called a 287(g), according to Lawyers for Civil Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts.
A Venezuelan migrant is led onto a bus at St. Andrews Episcopal Church on Friday, Sept. 16, 2022, in Edgartown, Massachusetts, on the island of Martha’s Vineyard.
(Matias J. Ocner/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Lawyers for Civil Rights sued the sheriff’s office last February in an effort to end the agreement.
Barnstable County includes Cape Cod. That’s where nearly 50 Venezuelan migrants were transferred in September from Martha’s Vineyard, where residents of the wealthy enclave initially welcomed them but later said the elite island community did not have the resources to support such an influx.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis thrust so-called sanctuary policies in Democrat areas of the country into the national spotlight in flying the illegal immigrants from the Texas border to Martha’s Vineyard. The migrants were transferred to Joint Base Cape Cod just days after arriving at the Massachusetts island.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu at the Nazzaro Community Center announcing renovations to its Boston Center for Youth & Families North End.
(David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
New Barnstable Sheriff Donna Buckley, who made a pledge to end the agreement a central part of her campaign, was sworn in last week, replacing James Cummings, who retired after 24 years.
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“This program has not proven to keep us safer and causes many living on Cape Cod to live in fear. That fear ends today,” Buckley, a Democrat, said in a statement.
Bristol and Plymouth counties had similar agreements, but both ended in 2021.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
