(Headline USA) Boston officials revealed this week that they ignored a dozen detainer requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement last year.
The Boston Police Department is required to assemble a report each year explaining how well it followed the city’s sanctuary law, the Trust Act.
The report, filed to city council on Monday, said the BPD received 12 requests from ICE throughout 2022 to turn over illegal immigrants into federal custody but ignored each of them.
On each of the requests, the BPD wrote, “It was not acted upon per the Boston Trust Ordinance.”
The BPD defended its lack of cooperation with federal authorities in its report.
“The Boston Police Department remains committed to the Boston Trust Act and strengthening relationships with all our communities,” BPD Commissioner Michael Cox wrote in the report, according to the Boston Herald. “Boston’s immigrant community should feel safe in reporting crime and in proactively engaging with the Boston Police Department.”
Signed in 2014 by former Mayor Martin Walsh, the Boston Trust Act says “local law enforcement shall not detain a person solely on the basis of a civil immigration detainer request issued by a federal immigration officer, or an administrative warrant issued by a federal immigration officer.”
ICE did not directly comment on BPD’s report, but said in a statement that “detainers are critical public safety tool because they focus enforcement resources on removable noncitizens who have been arrested for criminal activity.”
Just last month, Boston ICE officers arrested an illegal immigrant who was wanted for murder in Brazil.
“Detainers increase the safety of all parties involved ([immigration enforcement] personnel, law enforcement officials, the removable noncitizens, and the general public) by allowing an arrest to be made in a secure and controlled custodial setting as opposed to at-large within the community,” Boston ICE added.
