Tom Homan, the “border czar” for President Donald Trump’s administration, is setting his sights on the City of Boston’s sanctuary city policies.
Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington, D.C. on Saturday, Homan issued a warning specifically to Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox.
“The police commissioner of Boston, you said you’d double down on not helping the law enforcement offices of ICE. I’m coming to Boston, I’m bringing hell with me,” Homan said, prompting applause from the crowd. “You’re not a police commissioner. Take that badge off your chest, put it in your desk drawer. Because you became a politician. You forgot what it’s like to be a cop.”
Tom Homan targets Boston and Massachusetts
Homan accused the state’s police forces of neglecting their duty in targeting criminals who are in the country illegally. He said, without citing specifics, that he found multiple cases where criminals who he alleges were in the country illegally were in jail, but subsequently released.
“And guess what. The men and women of Immigrations and Custom Enforcement found those predators and they’re locked back up. And we’re going to deport them from the United States,” Homan said.
Boston is a sanctuary city. Mayor Michelle Wu will join the mayors of New York, Chicago and Denver to testify before a congressional oversight committee hearing investigating sanctuary city policies early next month.
Wu posted her support for the Boston Police Department on the social media platform Bluesky.
“This is our city. We’re going to continue following & enforcing the laws to keep all Bostonians safe. And it goes without saying that our police commissioner has my complete confidence & support,” Wu posted.
Wu fired back again Sunday afternoon, saying, “It’s insulting, we have the best police commissioner in the country, Boston’s crime levels are at the lowest ever recorded in our history, we are at the least number of homicides since at least 1957 when reliable records started being kept. And year after year, under our administration and under Commissioner Cox’s leadership, gun violence has set record lows and then broken those records one year after the other. So he’s been an amazing leader for the department.”
“It’s pretty clueless for someone to be insulting our police commissioner, whose decades of experience, whose leadership in the role and whose results with our amazing police department speak for themselves,” Wu continued. “When every single member of the community feels safe taking their kids to school, calling 911 when they need help or reporting information that they might know to law enforcement when they have something to share and that takes a level of trust that we’re very proud to have. We have more work to do every day and we’re continuing to work at it.”
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu on sanctuary city status
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky, launched the probe in January.
“Boston is a sanctuary jurisdiction under the Boston Trust Act, which the Boston City Council recently voted unanimously to reaffirm. Further, Boston is also subject to Massachusetts’s judicial precedent finding ICE detainers an unlawful exercise of state power. Mayor Michelle Wu ‘reiterated Boston’s status as a sanctuary city’ shortly after the 2024 presidential election,” Comer wrote in the letter to Wu at the time.
Initially, the mayors were asked to testify on February 11. Wu said earlier this month she would respond to the letter, but told reporters she preferred it to be at a later date after recently giving birth to her third child.
“I want to be accommodating and participate however best represents the city,” Wu said. “We’re very proud that Boston is the safest major city in the country. We have a lot to share about what has been working here, and we look forward to being able to get into the details of that.”
Gov. Maura Healey on immigration
Massachusetts has eight sanctuary cities – Amherst, Boston, Cambridge, Chelsea, Concord, Newton, Northampton, and Somerville.
In a December interview with WBZ-TV political analyst Jon Keller, Healey defended the state’s immigration policies.
“We are not a sanctuary state. If you come here, there is not housing here, and I think that’s been effective in changing the trajectory of [migration to Massachusetts],” Healey said.
