BOSTON — Many of the nearly 400 people arrested in Massachusetts during a recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation were not the intended targets of federal agents, President Trump’s border czar Tom Homan revealed Tuesday.
Homan traveled to Boston last week to oversee a six-day enhanced operation targeting transnational criminal organizations known to operate in and around Boston and throughout Massachusetts, including the MS-13, Tren de Aragua, Trinitarios, and 18th Street gangs.
Homan and federal officials confirmed the arrests of 370 “illegal aliens,” the majority of whom were described as “significant criminals.”
ICE agents have recently been spotted making arrests in Boston, East Boston, Chelsea, and other Massachusetts communities.
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When asked about the operation outside the White House, Homan again blasted Boston over its sanctuary policies.
“We did an operation in Boston. 370 apprehensions. Most of them were criminals, but many were collaterals. The majority of criminals. How come the collaterals? I’ve said this 1000 times: Sanctuary cities are going to get exactly what they don’t want: more agents in the community and more collateral arrests. Why? Because we can’t get access to the bad guy in the county jail,” Homan told reporters. “If they’re going to choose to release them in the public, which is just releasing a public safety threat in the public, it’s just dumb to begin with because it puts the public safety at risk, right? But when you release that public safety threat back in the public, that means we got to go find him. When we find him, most likely he’s with others, and if they’re they’re in the country legally, they’re coming too because we’re not going to tell ICE to ignore the oath that they took to enforce immigration law and walk away from the illegal alien like the last administration.”
When asked if he could specify exactly how many were collaterals, Homan said, “I don’t have the numbers...I can tell you the majority are criminals with criminal histories. We arrested, I think it was, four people for convictions for murder, homicide. We arrested child sex predators. We arrested drug traffickers and gun traffickers. We seized guns. We seized drugs.”
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey told reporters on Tuesday that she doesn’t “quite understand Director Homan’s comments.”
“We are not a sanctuary state. I am a former prosecutor and attorney general. I led the New England Strike Force on Fentanyl,” Healey said. “I spent a good part of my career investigating, prosecuting, and putting bad guys away. I continue as governor to ensure that state and local law enforcement are working with federal agencies.”
The Office of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu told Boston 25 News that they were given no information about Homan’s operation.
“The City was given no information on these arrests so we cannot confirm how many took place within Boston police jurisdiction or in other cities, and we cannot confirm whether every individual was lawfully detained,” a spokesperson for Wu said in a statement. “We continue to urge ICE to release information on all the individuals detained in order to ensure transparency.”
The Massachusetts Republican Party blamed Healey and Wu for letting the criminals arrested by ICE run free.
“This is the reality of the situation. If Governor Healey and Mayor Wu were able to set aside their commitment to extreme partisanship and embrace pragmatism by honoring ICE detainers, many of these individuals would have already been apprehended by ICE, and the need for mass raids could have been avoided,” Mass GOP Spokesperson Logan Trupiano said in a statement.
On Sunday, Wu told Boston 25, “Our city is the safest major city in the country because we are safe for everyone and because we collaborate every day with the federal government.”
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