Metropolis religion leaders informed Mayor Michelle Wu there’s loads of “fear” locally, at a time when President Trump’s border czar is vowing to deliver “hell” to Boston and Wu is prepping for a Congressional grilling over the Hub’s sanctuary insurance policies.
Wu sat down with an array of spiritual leaders within the Civic Pavilion in Metropolis Corridor Plaza Tuesday for a dialog that the mayor stated was supposed to tell the testimony she is going to present Wednesday, March 5 to a Republican-led Congressional oversight committee, in Washington, D.C.
The mayor stated her testimony could be targeted, partially, on what it means to be a “city that is home to immigrants” — a designation that she and religion leaders participating within the dialogue described as being below assault by immediately’s federal insurance policies.
“I am hearing a lot of fear in community,” Wu stated. “I’m hearing the tangible impacts about a lot of the policies and what is accurate, what is inaccurate, all kind of swirling around … Even those who have legal status in this country are just scared because of the swirl of what might happen.”
Wu, together with the mayors of Chicago, Denver and New York Metropolis, was ordered to seem earlier than the U.S. Home Committee on Oversight and Authorities Reform, which is probing sanctuary metropolis insurance policies and their affect on public security.
Referencing the invite despatched by Committee Chair James Comer final month, Wu stated “the frame of the letter was that we are in violation of laws and general principles by having the Trust Act in place and being a so-called sanctuary city” as taken from a “particular view that we are shielding certain people from accountability.”
Boston’s sanctuary standing is enshrined within the Boston Belief Act, a 2014 native regulation that prohibits metropolis police and different departments from cooperating with federal authorities on civil immigration detainers.
Wu and different metropolis officers say the Belief Act nonetheless permits for cooperation with the feds, specifically ICE, relating to sure felony issues, and have pushed again on assertions that the town’s sanctuary polices have impacted public security.
The mayor, who’s working for re-election, has touted final yr’s low murder price as proof that her administration’s insurance policies have made Boston the “safest major city” within the nation.
Religion leaders made related statements on the day’s roundtable dialogue, whereas emphasizing that they see a federal immigration crackdown — which has targeted on sanctuary cities like Boston — as negatively impacting public security, somewhat than bettering it.
“I think your message to the oversight committee is there are impacts and what they’re doing is going to create more havoc in public safety,” Rev. Willie Bodrick II of the Historic Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury, stated. “There will be huge impacts economically for the city and possibly the creation of a public safety issue.
“It’s going to create fear. It’s going to create a frenzy. People are going to hide.”
Whereas noting immediately’s concern in Boston’s immigrant neighborhood, the non secular leaders additionally struck a defiant tone at instances.
That was most evident once they had been addressing border czar Tom Homan’s vow final weekend to deliver “hell” to Boston after the town’s Police Commissioner Michael Cox, per Homan, stated he’d “double down on not helping law enforcement officers of ICE.”
“We have to make clear to the oversight committee that the fear is far-reaching,” Arlene Corridor, lead pastor of the Deliverance Temple Worship Middle in Dorchester, stated. “This is real.
“Whoever will come here to Boston to bring hell, we are from heaven,” she stated, “and the last time I checked, that’s the authority.”
