Boston Mayor Michelle Wu signed an government order that seeks to place stress on the Trump administration to make clear ICE’s “secret police tactics” that she says have been used within the metropolis and nation as a part of the feds’ immigration crackdown.
Wu stated Tuesday that the town shall be urgent for larger transparency by “regularly” submitting requests for public information with the Division of Homeland Safety by means of the Freedom of Info Act, “in response to the secret police tactics that have been deployed across the country in immigration enforcement.”
“Here, in Boston, we know how to keep our community safe,” Wu stated. “Our public security statistics inform the entire story that not solely do now we have the bottom statistics round violence of any main metropolis within the nation, charges of gun violence, of murder and different main crimes are on the lowest recorded ranges of Boston’s historical past as effectively.
“This is because of decades of partnership and of important changes that have been made to ensure that our officers uphold the trust and transparency and accountability that we have been bestowed by residents in Boston,” the mayor added. “Our officers wear badges. They do not routinely wear masks. We are clear about the reasons for potential arrests or interactions.”
Wu, who introduced her government order whereas flanked by many metropolis and state officers and neighborhood advocates at Metropolis Corridor, stated her administration shall be searching for information that disclose who federal immigration authorities are arresting, detaining, and deporting, and on what grounds these actions are being taken.
That data has largely not been offered to the town, Wu stated, which has been within the crosshairs of the Trump administration for months resulting from its sanctuary standing and restricted cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
Wu acknowledged that her government order will not be essentially enforceable, and that the town can’t compel the federal authorities to behave on its calls for for extra data on native immigration enforcement exercise.
“The city government cannot overrule what they’re doing, but it’s still important to tell the truth, and it’s still important to be clear about what we expect from our federal government,” Wu stated. “My recommendation to (border czar) Tom Homan and ICE is to take a day trip, reassess what you might be doing and the way you might be doing it.
“The American people are not stupid,” she added. “No one is buying the line that these secret police tactics are making communities safer.”
Wu’s government order comes after her disagreement final week with federal officers, together with Massachusetts U.S. Lawyer Leah Foley, Appearing ICE Director Todd Lyons, and the Trump White Home over her preliminary description of masked ICE brokers as “secret police,” and later comparability of ICE to a neo-Nazi group.
It additionally comes amid a sweep of ICE raids in Los Angeles, the place anti-ICE protestors have confronted off in opposition to metropolis, state and federal enforcement after President Donald Trump declared the town in a state of insurrection and deployed the Nationwide Guard.
Massachusetts unions held an “emergency rally” on Boston Metropolis Corridor Plaza Monday to sentence the ICE raids and the arrest of an area SEIU union president in Los Angeles over the weekend. California’s governor has filed a lawsuit in opposition to the Trump administration for “unlawfully” federalizing the state’s Nationwide Guard.
In Boston, Wu has criticized masked ICE brokers for “snatching” individuals off the road, with out telling them the place they’re going or offering “justification for why they are being taken.”
The feds say their immigration authorities are implementing federal regulation and clearly announce themselves, and have accused Wu and different politicians of placing ICE brokers at risk, and getting activists riled up with their “rhetoric.”
“Federal agents in marked jackets and vests are masking their faces because people like Mayor Wu have created false narratives about their mission,” Foley stated final week. “Federal agents and their children are being threatened, doxxed and assaulted. That is why they must hide their faces.”
