Boston officials defended the city’s “sanctuary” immigration policy and argued it does not conflict with federal law in a recent filing of a lawsuit brought by the Justice Department last fall.
In court documents filed Wednesday, city officials doubled down on efforts to litigate and respond to the federal government’s claim that the city impedes immigration agents from enforcing the law. A federal judge in Boston is weighing a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which Mayor Michelle Wu has described as an “unconstitutional attack” on the city.
The filing argues that the Trust Act, which prevents city officials from working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on civilian immigration efforts, ensures that city resources go to local priorities “reflecting the needs and values of the public and the City of Boston,” the filing states.
“Under the Trust Act, Boston does not participate in federal civil immigration enforcement,” the filing states. “Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, this is not required.”
ICE has separate divisions for enforcement and removal operations and homeland security investigations. The latter works on public safety issues such as human trafficking or drug and weapons smuggling, and the Boston Police can cooperate independently with federal agencies on these criminal cases.
The Trust Act prevents police officers from asking people about their immigration status and arresting or detaining people based on ICE administrative warrants if there are no criminal charges. It also prevents police from “acting as immigration officers”.
Earlier this month, the Justice Department argued that the city’s policy “creates a substantial impediment to ICE operations,” restricting where and how its immigration officers can make citizen arrests and “discriminatoryly prohibits the disclosure of information to federal immigration officials.”
“Further obstruction of the enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws must be prevented,” the federal government said in earlier court documents.
The Trust Act was first signed into law in 2014. The law is also consistent with a 2017 ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Court that under state law local authorities cannot detain individuals based solely on civil immigration law violations.
In November, city officials filed a three-page legal brief seeking to dismiss the federal government’s lawsuit, saying the lawsuit failed to state claims that federal law preempts or overrides the Trust Act. The brief also said federal officials failed to make any claim that the city’s law “unduly discriminates” or “regulates” the United States.
The latest filing states that the “mandatory” participation demanded by the federal government would be unconstitutional.
“The federal government cannot commandeer state and local governments to advance the federal policy agenda, yet that is precisely what the United States seeks here,” the filing said.
“The Trust Act only regulates city employees; it says nothing about how federal officials — within the limits of their constitutional and statutory authority — can perform federal functions,” the filing states.
The lawsuit names the City of Boston, Wu, Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox and the Boston Police Department as defendants. Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell filed a legal brief in November supporting the city’s motion to dismiss.
Attorney General Pam Bondi has aggressively attacked Boston’s leaders, calling its mayor “among the worst sanctuary criminals in America” and city policies “designed to weaken law enforcement and protect illegal aliens from justice.”
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