BOSTON — ICE has already begun rounding up hundreds of illegal immigrant criminals across the country just two days into the Trump administration’s aggressive push, including the Boston area where one Haitian gang member told agents “(expletive) Trump, Biden forever!,” according to a Fox News report set to air today.

The Herald reported last weekend that Trump was ready to pounce on the nation’s illegal immigration crisis and that Chicago was first on the list — but that Boston was not too far behind.

Now appears that Boston’s timetable has been sped up, as FOX News embedded with Boston-based members of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations and witnessed at least eight arrests, according to a tweet from reporter Bill Melugin.

That segment, set to air Thursday, will feature arrests on the streets of greater Boston — including, according to Melugin’s “sneak peek” tweet, the arrest of a Haitian gang member with a long rap sheet who told arresting officers that he “ain’t going back to Haiti” and “(expletive) Trump, Biden forever!”

Border Czar Tom Homan said on Tuesday, the first full day of Trump’s second term, that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers had already arrested “308 serious criminals,” including murderers, some of them were rapists, some of them raped a child, some of them sexually assaulted a child.”

“So, ICE is doing their job, just as President Trump has said they would,” Homan said Wednesday morning in an interview on FOX News. “And they are going to continue every day.”

Other cities targeted in the sweep included Denver, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Seattle, Baltimore and Miami, according to the New York Post.

Sanctuary cities

Along with the arrests comes pressure on cities and states to comply with the crackdown.

A Justice Department memo obtained circulating Wednesday indicates that higher-ups have ordered federal prosecutors to investigate state and local officials and laws that “threaten to impede” the administration’s immigration enforcement efforts.

“Indeed, it is the responsibility of the Justice Department to defend the Constitution, and accordingly, to lawfully execute the policies that the American people elected President Trump to implement,” Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove wrote in the memo.

Bay State cities rushed to affirm their status as sanctuary cities, including Amherst, Boston, Cambridge, Chelsea, Concord, Newton, Northampton, and Somerville. Natick has also joined the fray.

Somerville’s mayor said that it is “disheartening that sanctuary and welcoming city policies remain so widely misunderstood.”

“Somerville is squarely focused on local public safety, which includes our police conducting local police work and leaving immigration enforcement to federal agencies without interference, but also working with all federal agencies on criminal cases,” Mayor Katjana Ballantyne told the Herald in an emailed statement.

“No one who commits a crime gets a free pass here,” Ballantyne continued. “At the same time, we are deeply concerned that mass deportations will lead to economic and social harms including driving up food costs and endangering people who fled violence and crises at home. We continue to urge the administration to instead focus on humane immigration reform.”

Likewise, a spokesman for Cambridge said that the city “remains unwavering in its commitment to supporting and promoting the safety, health, and well-being of all of its residents.” That includes free “Know Your Rights” workshops throughout the city where immigration attorneys inform those interested on immigration law and even provide advice.

The local police department does not routinely ask about or investigate a person’s documentation status as that is “responsibility of the federal government.” Spokesman Jeremy Warnick did say that the CPD would, however, “assist any law enforcement agency that has an active warrant for an arrest of a violent offender.”

“Finally, while Cambridge has benefitted from a number of federal grant programs, it is prepared to navigate any shifts in policies that may come with the new administration,” Warnick wrote in an email to the Herald.

In Boston, ICE claims that the Boston Police Department refused to act on nearly 200 immigration detainer requests last year, the Herald previously reported. Neither Mayor Michelle Wu’s office nor the BPD returned an emailed request for comment on the DOJ development.

The Massachusetts Teachers Association said it was “repulsive” that Trump’s directive would allow ICE to arrest students in the state’s public schools.

“It is repulsive to our shared common values, and this cruel policy shatters the trust that families place in our educators and our public schools as safe havens and inflicts lasting trauma on innocent children,” the MTA wrote in a statement.

Gov. Maura Healey maintains that Massachusetts is not a sanctuary state, a statement she made as recently as Wednesday’s budget press conference.

While she said she hadn’t yet read about the DOJ order, she said she has “no reason to be concerned. Officials here follow the law. We’re not a sanctuary state.”

“When it comes to actual civil immigration enforcement, that is something that, by law, is delegated — it is the authority of federal law enforcement and federal immigration officials,” she added. “I don’t stand in the way of that.”

Moving forward

Border Czar Homan indicated that the swift escalation of arresting those here illegally was just beginning, and could very well expand its scope.

“There’s nothing in the immigration law that says you have to be convicted of a serious crime to be removed under the INA (Immigration and Nationality Act),” he said in the FOX News interview.

“So if you’re in the country illegally, then ICE can visit you. But right now, as we’ve said repeatedly, and President Trump has been clear, we’re concentrating on the worst first.”

_____

©2025 MediaNews Group, Inc. Visit at bostonherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.