Massachusetts AG Andrea Campbell is in a disagreement with U.S. Lawyer Leah Foley over ICE brokers sporting masks on the job, an idea that Gov. Maura Healey says “doesn’t make sense.”
The governor’s feedback come as Foley finds herself on the defensive after Campbell stated banning federal brokers from sporting masks needs to be a precedence of the federal workplace.
Showing on GBH’s Boston Public Radio, Healey stated that she’d totally help ICE and President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda if it have been “actually about going after violent guys and taking them off the streets.”
“But that’s not what is going on,” the governor stated on Wednesday. “This is what I encourage people to do: Continue to film, continue to document, continue to share the stories about what’s happening. People are fed up with … how Trump is abusing ICE.”
Healey’s radio look got here simply over 12 hours after Foley launched a scathing assertion on social media following Campbell’s personal look on the identical present the day earlier than.
The AG stated she believes a proposed legislation on the State Home that seeks to ban federal immigration brokers from sporting face coverings whereas on obligation is best left as much as the federal degree.
“Why? Because to … implement that against ICE officials, [it is] nearly impossible,” Campbell stated on Tuesday. “And I don’t mince my words there.”
Campbell added that her workplace is monitoring ICE actions for “possible racial profiling” with the “hopes that maybe if there’s something that we can hold them accountable for, we will.” She referred to as on Bay Staters to hunt accountability of ICE from the Massachusetts U.S. Lawyer.
“That’s your U.S. Attorney’s job,” Campbell stated. “They’re not doing that. It’s just very difficult to enforce. My thing is, we don’t want to just be passing things for the sake of passing things.”
“Even if we were to try to hold them accountable in attempting to even do that, if we were to arrest an ICE official, it’s very difficult,” the AG added. “The judge might even throw it out because of federalism. But what’s worse is retaliation and retribution coming from this federal administration is very real.”
The Division of Homeland Safety and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have stated that ICE officers are grappling with an enormous improve in assaults in opposition to them, round 830%.
“I would hope that the Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell understands that it is the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution that prohibits her from arresting federal officers for doing their jobs,” Foley stated in an announcement posted on the Massachusetts U.S. Lawyer’s social media pages Tuesday evening. “It’s disappointing to listen to her say that our nation’s Structure isn’t on her ‘side.’
“I have stated repeatedly that ICE agents are masked due to incidents of doxing and threats against them and their families,” she added, “The attorney general apparently is less mindful of these documented significant threats than she is of murky, unverified accounts of retribution.”
The disagreement between Campbell and Foley additionally comes because the FBI has urged companion businesses to “adequately identify themselves” amid a stretch of incidents the place impersonators pretending to be ICE officers have dedicated crimes.
California grew to become the primary state to ban most legislation enforcement officers, together with federal immigration brokers, from protecting their faces whereas conducting official enterprise below a invoice that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed in September.
The ban is a direct response to current immigration raids in Los Angeles, the place federal brokers wore masks whereas making mass arrests. The raids prompted days of protest and led President Donald Trump to deploy Nationwide Guard troops and Marines to the world.
Senate President Karen Spilka stated late final month that she backs the proposed ban on federal brokers sporting masks coverings, equating the follow to “almost like the 1930s Germany.”
Healey stated on her month-to-month radio look that she needs Bay Staters to bear in mind that native police and the Massachusetts State Police don’t put on masks. She added that she needs officers on the native, state, and federal ranges have been all held to the identical requirements.
“They wear a badge, they are identified by name and number,” Healey stated of native and state police. “It doesn’t make sense to a lot of people that (the feds) are somehow allowed to have a different standard.”
Foley slammed Campbell for going public with a narrative about Healey thanking airport employees for working with out pay throughout the federal government shutdown, which the AG claimed sparked a “union meeting … where they were maybe chastised or something.”
“In defense of my federal partners,” Foley stated, “I can say that her version of what happened is completely false and the facts will come out.”
“The attorney general is welcome to share her opinions and tall tale stories (even she admits she does not know all the facts and conveniently maligns to fill the voids),” Foley added, “but her overtly political and inaccurate statements only fuel the misinformation and fear that she purportedly seeks to quell.”
Earlier this yr, Foley slammed Boston Mayor Michelle Wu for “reckless and inflammatory statements” about federal immigration authorities in an interview through which Wu equated brokers to “secret police.”
The Related Press contributed to this report.
