The Department of Justice (DOJ) sued Boston and Mayor Michelle Wu on Thursday over the city’s sanctuary policies, which the department says prevent police from cooperating with federal immigration authorities.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi called the city and its mayor “among the worst sanctuary offenders in America” due to the enforcement of policies that she alleged protected illegal immigrants from federal detention.
“If Boston won’t protect its citizens from illegal alien crime, this Department of Justice will,” Bondi said in a statement announcing the legal action.
In its lawsuit, the DOJ alleged that the Boston Trust Act was “impairing federal detention of removable aliens, including dangerous criminals,” by barring local police officers from accepting federal immigration detainers.
The city laws, the DOJ said, impeded federal immigration officers’ ability to perform their duties in Boston, violating the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The lawsuit also named the Boston Police Department and Police Commissioner Michael Cox as defendants.
The DOJ accused Wu of putting public safety at risk by enabling illegal immigrants facing criminal charges to be released instead of held for immigration removal, citing the mayor’s recent letter to Bondi in which she vowed that “Boston will never back down” from its policies.
In a response statement posted on social media, Wu called the DOJ’s lawsuit an “unconstitutional attack on our city” and vowed to defend the sanctuary city laws.
“This is our city, and we will vigorously defend our laws and the constitutional rights of cities, which have been repeatedly upheld in courts across the country. We will not yield,” she stated.
Wu had previously sent a letter to Bondi in response to the attorney general’s demand letters to states, counties, and cities considered sanctuary jurisdictions. Bondi warned that individuals who use their official positions to obstruct federal immigration enforcement “may be subject to criminal changes.”
In her Aug. 19 letter, Wu said that Massachusetts law has set “clear limits on participation in federal immigration enforcement,” pointing to a ruling from the state’s Supreme Judicial Court that barred state and local law enforcement agencies from conducting arrests solely based on federal immigration detainer requests, absent a criminal warrant.
The lawsuit against Boston marks the latest in a series of DOJ legal challenges against cities and states with sanctuary policies, including Los Angeles, New York, and Illinois. In July, a federal judge dismissed the DOJ’s lawsuit against Illinois, Cook County, and the city of Chicago, ruling that their sanctuary policies were protected by state sovereignty.
Trump issued an executive order on April 28 directing the DOJ and Homeland Security Department to pursue legal remedies for jurisdictions that refuse to comply with federal law.
“This is a lawless insurrection against the supremacy of Federal law and the Federal Government’s obligation to defend the territorial sovereignty of the United States,” he stated.
Trump had also attempted to suspend federal funding to sanctuary jurisdictions, but the move was halted on Aug. 22 by a federal judge in California.
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