Civil liberties advocates are placing strain on the Boston Metropolis Council to reject a large federal anti-terrorism grant, saying that the police surveillance work it helps to fund may very well be utilized by the feds to focus on the immigrant group.
Advocates on Thursday pointed to this week’s arrest of a Tufts College graduate pupil with pro-Palestinian views that was made by Division of Homeland Safety brokers and final week’s ICE Boston sweep that led to 370 arrests, a few of which had been collateral, as proof that the grant could also be used for related actions.
“It is very clear that the agenda right now is that the entirety of DHS is going to focus on deporting and detaining immigrants,” Fatema Ahmad, govt director of the Muslim Justice League, mentioned. “Other grants are getting cut. Those that are remaining are going to be shifted to focus on that.
“So it is really, really dangerous for us to think that’s not going to happen with this grant that we already know is tied to information sharing with federal law enforcement … I think that applying for this in this moment is just incredibly dangerous. We’re already seeing that our city, Boston, is being targeted.”
The grant being mentioned on the day’s listening to of the Council’s Public Security and Prison Justice Committee listening to was the town’s annual counter-terrorism grant issued by the U.S. Division of Homeland Safety.
Final yr, the Council obtained and authorized a roughly $12 million grant with comparatively little fuss, however the yr earlier than proved to be a battle with the Council voting to dam a $13 million grant twice.
After being publicly slammed by a few councilors, a congressman, and a state senator who moved to remove the Council’s public-safety grant approval authority based mostly on the blocked vote, the physique ultimately authorized the grant months later, in early 2024.
Committee Chair Henry Santana mentioned he selected to carry early hearings on the grant, which is usually voted on in December, to deal with “unanswered questions” from the group and metropolis councilors, most of whom didn’t present up on Thursday.
The “Urban Area Security Initiative Grant,” administered by the town’s Workplace of Emergency Administration, is the annual funding supply for the Metro Boston Homeland Safety Area, which incorporates 9 cities and cities: Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Chelsea, Everett, Quincy, Revere, Somerville, and Winthrop.
Boston, because the lead metropolis, is tasked with performing because the approval authority for the grant. Advocates say the Council ought to take into account rejecting it this yr, on condition that the Hub is likely one of the sanctuary cities federal immigration authorities have centered on.
Such a transfer would seemingly be unprecedented, in line with Kade Crockford, director of the Know-how for Liberty Program at ACLU Massachusetts, who mentioned she couldn’t consider one other metropolis that opted to not settle for a federal UASI grant.
Crockford and different advocates centered lots of their considerations across the portion of the anti-terror grant that’s allotted to the Boston Regional Intelligence Middle, the intelligence arm of the Boston Police Division, and the data they are saying the BRIC shares with Homeland Safety.
“The ACLU has never taken the position and will not take the position that the Boston Police Department should not collaborate with the FBI on serious criminal investigations,” Crockford mentioned.
“What concerns us deeply … is that the Boston Police Department may inadvertently share information with federal agencies who have been ordered by the most powerful person in this country to stop work on these serious criminal investigations to turn their attention to the grandmas and aunties and uncles who are law abiding immigrants in this country for deportation.”
Crockford mentioned that because the Council prepares to take up the grant later this yr, it ought to take a look at what BPD has finished to vary its insurance policies and procedures, “given this new reality” and “new federal landscape.”
“This is not the FBI under the Biden administration,” Crockford mentioned. “These people … do not have a respect for the rule of law. This is a totally different beast that we’re dealing with here, and in my view, the city ought to act accordingly.”
Ryan Walsh, director of the Boston Regional Intelligence Middle, mentioned the BRIC obtained roughly $2 million from final yr’s anti-terror grant, and that there’s “no direct query ability” between federal legislation enforcement and the BRIC because it pertains to its intelligence information sharing.
“We take very seriously the need to confirm with them that there’s a full criminal investigation before we would share anything with them from the gang database or any BRIC information system or BPD information system,” Walsh mentioned.
Boston is a sanctuary metropolis underneath the Boston Belief Act, which bars metropolis police and different departments from cooperating with federal authorities on civil immigration issues.
“We stringently adhere to the Trust Act,” Walsh mentioned. “The commissioner has made it a priority for us to be concerned about fear of crime in the city and fear among our residents. We’re understanding that this is a particularly fearful time, unfortunately, and so we’re very sensitive to that.”
A Wu administration official who took half within the listening to mentioned the town hasn’t been notified about whether or not it will obtain the DHS grant this yr, or if funds can be decrease than in previous years.
Councilor Ed Flynn, who bashed his colleagues two years in the past for blocking a $13 million anti-terror grant, mentioned that it will develop into a “national story” if Boston had been to not settle for the federal funds this yr.
“Does that make Boston an even bigger target from the federal government, for the federal government to say, well, they’re not going to do any of the critical public safety support that’s needed,” Flynn mentioned, “and maybe there’s a bigger role for the federal government to play in Boston, because they don’t even want to accept our money to do the basic public safety function.”
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