ICE detained nearly 1,500 immigrants in Massachusetts in May
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Federal officials arrested nearly 1,500 immigrants across Massachusetts last month, U.S. Attorney Leah Foley said.
The big picture: Foley's announcement on Monday is the latest example of the Trump administration's efforts to ramp up immigration enforcement and paint Massachusetts as a state that's overlooking crime.
- But families and advocates say many detained immigrants had no criminal record and even had legal status.
Driving the news: Foley said agents detained 1,461 people, including 790 immigrants who had violated immigration laws and committed crimes.
- Foley said the detainees include murderers, rapists, gang members and other criminal offenders, but did not elaborate on what violations those without criminal backgrounds had committed.
What they're saying: "To any alien criminal offenders victimizing Massachusetts residents, ICE is not going away," Foley said.
- "We are coming for you."
One neighborhood over, U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley conducted a panel and a press conference calling on Boston-area residents to organize against the Trump administration's immigration strategy.
- "It has nothing to do with public safety," Pressley said when asked by Axios about Foley's announcement.
- "They want to win points with Trump and literally turn Massachusetts into some scoreboard while they're tearing families apart."
Pressley's forum in East Boston featured three women who recalled how their families struggled after their husbands were detained by federal immigration agents in recent weeks.
- Kenia Guerrero, a mother of three from Chelsea, said she was driving to church with her family on Mother's Day when agents stopped them and broke the window of their car to remove her husband.
- Another mother, Mercedes Pineda of East Boston, said her partner, Jose, was detained last Tuesday at work despite having Temporary Protected Status, a quasi-legal protection for El Salvadoran nationals who escaped violence and other calamities.
Zoom out: Massachusetts has made headlines since Trump reentered office in January over the detention of immigrants without criminal records and, in some cases, with visas and other immigration protections.
- Milford High School junior Marcelo Gomes was heading to volleyball practice Saturday morning when he was detained by immigration agents.
- Todd Lyons, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said agents were looking for Gomes' father when they pulled over the car Gomes was driving.
- "He's in this country illegally, and we're not going to walk away from anybody," Lyons told reporters Monday, adding that Gomes remains detained and his father has not come forward.
Friction point: Elected officials in East Boston raised questions about the Trump administration's claims that they are going after criminals.
- State Sen. Lydia Edwards said the immigration enforcement aims to stoke fear and criminalize immigration, legal or otherwise.
Yes, but: Nicole Eigbrett, co-executive director of the Asian American Resource Workshop, said that even if an immigrant has committed a crime, "there's no such thing as a good or bad immigrant."
- AARW, she added, supports Asian immigrants of all backgrounds and circumstances, even those who were convicted of crimes decades ago and repaid their debt to society.
The bottom line: Immigrants charged or convicted with crimes will remain on federal immigration officials' radar, especially as Massachusetts and Boston-area cities remain classified as sanctuary jurisdictions, Foley said.
- When police departments don't cooperate with ICE, "then we must go out into the community," Foley said, "and when we go into the community and find others who are unlawfully here, we are going to arrest them."
- "We've been completely transparent with that."