Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox said the department refused to act on all 15 civil immigration detainer requests submitted by federal authorities last year, citing a city law that shields noncitizens from deportation under certain circumstances.
Cox, in a letter to the city clerk filed Monday with the City Council, said the 15 requests were “not acted upon per the Boston Trust Act,” which prohibits BPD and other city departments from cooperating with the U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), when it comes to detaining immigrants on civil warrants.
“The Boston Police Department remains committed to complying with the Boston Trust Act and to building and strengthening relationships and trust with all our communities,” Cox wrote. “Boston’s immigrant communities should feel safe in reporting crime and quality of life issues to the department and in proactively engaging with all members of the Boston Police Department.”
The Trust Act, which was first enacted in 2014, enshrines the city’s sanctuary status and was reaffirmed last month by the City Council, still allows for cooperation with ICE in criminal matters like human trafficking, child exploitation, drug and weapons trafficking, and cybercrimes, according to city officials.
A number of city councilors spoke to what they saw as an innate sense of urgency to reaffirm the Trust Act, amid President-elect Donald Trump’s vow to carry out mass deportations when he takes office for the second time later this month.
Mayor Michelle Wu cited the Trust Act when vowing that the city would continue to protect immigrants in “every possible way” under Trump’s mass deportation threat, and would not cooperate with efforts that threaten residents’ safety.
Wu’s comments were bashed by Trump’s incoming border czar Tom Homan, for what he saw as her vow to fight federal efforts to eradicate public safety threats, leading to a public squabble between the two.
In his Dec. 31 letter, Cox doesn’t specify the nature of the 15 civil immigration detainer requests, nor did the Police Department respond to the Herald’s request for details. A similar inquiry sent to ICE Boston was not immediately returned.
Cox said no individuals were detained last year by BPD nor transferred to ICE custody, and no cost reimbursements were received from the federal government, per the requests. BPD has submitted an annual report to the city clerk with such details since the Trust Act was enacted, the city website states.
Any arrests related to criminal re-entry detected during unrelated Boston Police activity are required to be included in the report as well — instances that seemingly did not occur last year as there was no mention of such made by the commissioner in his letter to City Clerk Alex Geourntas.
An immigration detainer is a request from ICE that asks a federal, state or local law enforcement agency, including jails, prisons or other confinement facilities, to notify the requesting agency as early as possible before they release a removable noncitizen and hold the noncitizen for up to an additional 48 hours.
This allows ICE time to take custody of those individuals in accordance with federal immigration law, the ICE website states.
ICE says it lodges immigration detainers after officers or agents establish probable cause to believe that a noncitizen is removable under federal immigration law, typically after a court has convicted them of one or more crimes and when the noncitizen poses a public safety or national security threat.
