Mayor Michelle Wu says Boston won't comply with feds' order to dismantle sanctuary protections

BOSTON — Boston Mayor Michelle Wu made it clear Tuesday that the city has no intention of complying with a federal order to begin dismantling its sanctuary protections for illegal immigrants, saying that the Trump administration is “wrong” on the issue.

Surrounded by a huge crowd of community leaders, residents, and elected officials sympathetic to local immigration protections from federal mass deportation efforts, Wu said she was more than willing to meet the Tuesday deadline imposed for her response to a Department of Justice letter, but her cooperation ended there.

“We’re here today because last week Boston received a letter from the Attorney General of the United States on official letterhead from the federal government, threatening to prosecute city officials and withhold federal funds unless we cooperate with carrying out mass deportations,” Wu said at a press conference she convened on City Hall Plaza.

“The U.S. Attorney General asked for a response today, so here it is,” the mayor said. “Stop attacking our cities to hide your administration’s failures. Unlike the Trump administration, Boston follows the law, and Boston will not back down from who we are or what we stand for. We will not back away from our community that has made us the safest city in the country.”

Wu, who was accused by Attorney General Pam Bondi last week of violating federal law by way of the Boston Trust Act, which limits local cooperation with federal immigration authorities, sought to portray the Trump administration as unconstitutionally interfering with the city government’s authority to enforce public safety.

She also mentioned, in a formal written response to Bondi on Tuesday, that the Trump administration’s “false and continuous” attacks on Boston and other cities, including efforts to slash federal funding and deploy “military personnel” to city streets, were “unprecedented” and unlawful.

Mentioning the president’s deployment of the National Guard in recent months to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., Wu said Boston was prepared should the federal government seek to intervene in the city’s law enforcement efforts.

“We also stand with those cities as they sue over his abuse and power,” Wu said. “We have reviewed those cases and we are prepared to stand up for our city’s rights if we need to.

“These attacks all come back to a common aim: The Trump administration seeks to divide, isolate and intimidate our cities and make Americans fearful of one another,” the mayor added. “Boston will never back down from being a beacon of freedom and a home for everyone.”

Attorney General Bondi last week hit Boston’s mayor and other leaders of cities and states identified by the Department of Justice as sanctuary jurisdictions with a letter ordering them to, by Tuesday, share how they planned to immediately begin dismantling local immigration protections.

Bondi’s letter sent to Wu last week characterizes Boston’s sanctuary policies as a threat to national security.

“For too long, so-called sanctuary jurisdiction policies have undermined this necessary cooperation and obstructed federal immigration enforcement, giving aliens cover to perpetrate crimes in our communities and evade the immigration consequences that federal law requires,” Bondi wrote.

“You are hereby notified that your jurisdiction has been identified as one that engages in sanctuary policies and practices that thwart federal immigration enforcement to the detriment of the interests of the United States. This ends now.”

Bondi ordered Wu to submit a response that confirms her “commitment to complying with federal law” and identifying immediate steps to “eliminate laws, policies and practices that impede federal immigration enforcement.”

The AG’s letter does not specify what consequences Boston and other sanctuary jurisdictions identified by the feds will face should they fail to comply with the federal order.

Bondi’s office did not immediately respond to a Herald request for comment on Wu’s stated intention to defy the DOJ order.

Per Wu’s remarks on Tuesday, her administration is anticipating further efforts to cut federal funding, pursue criminal prosecution against the mayor, and potentially seek to deploy the National Guard.

Wu was one of four mayors to testify before a GOP-led Congressional oversight committee last March on sanctuary policies and was referred to the DOJ for criminal prosecution.

“To all the federal officials attacking communities that embody diversity, creativity and moral clarity, we mayors said this in D.C. nearly six months ago, and I’ll say it again today: You are wrong on the law and you are wrong on safety,” Wu said.

Wu told reporters after the press conference that she never heard back on whether the DOJ planned to act on a House Republican’s referral for her prosecution, but said that, despite the lack of follow-up, she takes such repeated threats seriously.

“This is the full weight of the federal government of the United States of America, targeting and threatening jurisdictions across this country unconstitutionally and in violation of federal laws, and, in this case, of state and city law as well,” Wu said. “This is a very serious matter, and we are going to continue to stand up for Boston.”

U.S. Senator Ed Markey characterized the Trump administration’s decision to “pick a fight” with Boston’s elected leaders as “political theater,” while speaking at the day’s press conference, which more closely resembled a responsive Wu reelection campaign rally, and opened with a live Spanish-music performance.

City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune, the first Haitian-American elected to the Council, led chants of “whose city? Our city” and dismissed the Trump administration’s portrayal of sanctuary policies resulting in higher crime as a “lie.”

“Our immigrant communities are here, are working, and are contributing to our community, to our city, every day, to our tax base, to our hospitals, to our schools, and they are making our city safer every single day,” Louijeune said. “We will not believe the lie and the hype about crime.

“We know … that he is using the fear of crime to hide the fact that he cannot deliver for the American people, that he is failing every single day.”

Josh Kraft, Wu’s principal mayoral opponent, took a similar tack as the mayor and her political allies, describing the feds’ sanctuary ultimatum as “just another unhinged attack targeting our nation’s immigrants, who comprise the backbone of our economy and our communities.”

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