After Democratic Mayor Michelle Wu refused to cooperate with Attorney General Pam Bondi's order urging the city of Boston to abandon its sanctuary city policy, the acting ICE director replied Wednesday stating that his agents "will flood the area".
Earlier this month, Bondi sent a letter to Wu explaining that so-called sanctuary jurisdictions "have obstructed the enforcement of federal immigration laws, providing cover for foreigners to perpetrate crimes in our communities and evade the immigration consequences required by federal law."
Trump's attorney identified Boston as one of the cities implementing this type of legal protection for illegal immigration and urged the Democratic official through the same means for her administration to end this policy, giving her a deadline to implement this change by last Monday.
Michelle Wu. | La Derecha Diario
Wu doubles down.
In response to this letter, Wu held a press conference Tuesday in which she replied arrogantly and stated that Boston will not back down from what it stands for. In the mayor's words, "we won't turn our backs on our community, which has made us the safest city in the country."
Wu's stance has paved the way for the acting deputy director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to declare that his agents will take over the city. "We're definitely going to flood the area. Boston and Massachusetts decided they wanted to remain a sanctuary (...) sanctuary means more criminal foreigners loose in the neighborhood," he stated.
Lyons accused Boston of ignoring ICE detainer orders and releasing illegal immigrants with criminal records onto the streets. "Not only do we have to go after those we were already looking for, but we also have to deal with jurisdictions that are releasing criminal foreigners in real time while we're out on the streets working," the director said.
Michelle Wu. | La Derecha Diario
Local police secretly cooperate with ICE.
The head of immigration forces said that although Boston police are prohibited from assisting ICE due to municipal laws, some officers are helping undercover because they're afraid of getting in trouble or being fired.
On this matter, Lyons made the following reflection: "That's the problem we're seeing in many jurisdictions. We have so many men and women in the Boston Police Department and in other jurisdictions who are so pro-ICE, who want to work with us and who are actually helping us behind the scenes."
"That's what I think local leaders don't understand: that they need to talk to the men and women on the ground, because there are so many of these criminal foreigners who keep being released to go out and commit more crimes, which local police then have to deal with. We can instantly remove that violent criminal foreigner from the neighborhood," he continued.