BOSTON — The Boston Police Department says it received and ignored 12 federal requests to detain suspected illegal immigrants last year under the city's sanctuary-city law.
Every year, the BPD is tasked with putting out a report on how well it followed the city’s Trust Act, an ordinance that forbids city agencies from cooperating with certain requests from federal immigration-enforcement officials.
According to the report, filed with the City Council on Monday, the city cops received 12 requests throughout the year. For each of them — little information is given besides the precinct it went to and the date of the ask — the police department wrote, “It was not acted upon per the Boston Trust Ordinance.”
The report also notes that “zero individuals” were detained by the cops or transferred to federal Immigrations & Customs Enforcement this year under immigration detainers, and there were no cost reimbursements from ICE for related efforts.
“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. “Boston’s immigrant community should feel safe in reporting crime and in proactively engaging with the Boston Police Department.”
A Boston ICE spokesman didn’t directly comment on the numbers, but said in a statement, “Detainers are a critical public safety tool because they focus enforcement resources on removable noncitizens who have been arrested for criminal activity.”
“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,” ICE added.
There’s no one boilerplate sanctuary-city law, but the term generally refers to rules that prohibit police forces, schools and the like from sharing data with or following through on detainer requests from federal immigration-enforcement officials. This became a popular type of effort by left-leaning city governments during the Trump administration, when the feds became more aggressive in going after illegal immigrants.
Boston’s version of such a law is called the Trust Act, first put into place in 2015 and then strengthened in 2019, when then-Councilor Josh Zakim proposed an update of the law in light of fears that then-President Donald Trump would have a large-scale immigration crackdown.
ICE is divided into two wings — the side that does deportations, which is a civil action, and the criminal wing which focuses on trafficking and other matters. The cops are allowed to work with the criminal side.
