High Beacon Hill Democrats criticized President Donald Trump’s administration Monday for renewing a surge of immigration arrests in Boston over the weekend, with Gov. Maura Healey calling the actions “political theater” and “attempts to distract from Trump’s failing agenda.”
Immigration brokers from throughout the nation descended on Boston and different municipalities for an operation U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers dubbed “Patriot 2.0,” a reference to a earlier uptick in motion earlier this yr that resulted in almost 1,500 arrests.
Healey stated federal immigration officers are arresting “construction workers and nannies and health care aides and agricultural workers.”
“I’m talking to a lot of people who are feeling the effects of tariffs. Capital is not being deployed in the United States. People don’t have access to capital in the United States for development, whether it’s for housing or other growth, and this is a real problem. And so a lot of this is about political theater to distract from his abject failure on the economy,” the first-term Democrat stated outdoors her State Home workplace.
Officers at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have stated they’re trying to find people arrested by the Boston Police Division who’re “actionable cases,” or people who brokers have tried to take into custody or lodged detainers towards.
Massachusetts has additionally been a routine goal of Republican criticism due to a earlier surge of migrants within the state-run shelter inhabitants and native guidelines that largely restrict police or court docket officers from interacting with federal immigration brokers.
Senate President Karen Spilka stated constituents in her communities — Ashland, Framingham, Holliston, Hopkinton, Medway, and Natick — are involved in regards to the uptick in immigration motion.
“People are concerned about going to work. They’re concerned about walking to go to their drug stores or their supermarkets. They’re concerned about being picked up. I support Governor Healy and everyone in Massachusetts who calls out the federal government, its overreach in all of our communities,” Spilka stated on the State Home.
Home Speaker Ron Mariano stated everybody who pays consideration to the information “has some fear of what’s going on.”
“Quincy is a changing demographic. We have 40% minorities in the city now, and they live under this fear, even though we don’t have a specific incident,” Mariano stated of his hometown.
Republicans working for governor subsequent yr criticized Healey for her response to the surge in immigration arrests.
“To be clear: there is nothing theatrical about the public’s outrage over multiple cases in Massachusetts where criminal illegal immigrants with ICE detainers have been arrested in Massachusetts by local authorities, only to be released back into the community, putting citizens directly at risk just because Maura Healey wants to thumb her nose to the federal government,” stated Mike Kennealy, a former cupboard secretary below Gov. Charlie Baker.
Brian Shortsleeve, a enterprise capitalist and former MBTA official below Baker, stated Healey is “refusing to take responsibility for the policies that she has put in place.”
“She can deny it as much as she wants, but every taxpayer knows she turned Massachusetts into a sanctuary state. As the next governor, I will reverse her reckless policies,” he stated in a press release.
Healey has lengthy pushed again on makes an attempt to label Massachusetts a “sanctuary state,” and repeated that declare once more throughout an interview aired Sunday on MSNBC.
“It’s just the fact. Nor is Boston a sanctuary city,” she stated. “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.”
