As the federal border czar calls out Boston over its sanctuary city policies, Democrats across the state line in New Hampshire are also fighting against federal actions to enforce immigration laws.
Specifically, the New Hampshire ACLU and Democratic legislators are attacking a federal proposal to use the use house illegal immigrant detainees at the Federal Corrections Institute in Berlin.
“Holding anyone who hasn’t committed a crime in a medium security federal prison with no due process sets a terrible precedent — even for an administration where lawlessness has become the norm,” state Rep. David Meuse (D-Portsmouth) wrote in a social media post in response to the news.
Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, rhetorical warfare has broken out between the leaders of Boston and President Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan. In response to repeated public statements from Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox that they will not cooperate with enforcement of immigration laws, Homan issued a warning over the weekend.
“I read a story last night: the police commissioner of Boston, you said you’d double down on not helping the law enforcement office of ICE,” Homan said. “I’m coming to Boston and I’m bringing hell with me.
“You’re not a police commissioner. Take that badge off your chest, put it in the desk drawer because you became a politician, you forgot what it’s like to be a cop,” Homan added.
Bay State Democrats were not backing down.
“Laughable that someone who spent their career policing a town smaller than a Fenway Park crowd thinks they can lecture Boston on public safety,” Boston City Councilor Sharon Durkan posted on social media, taking a jab at Homan’s brief stint working as a police officer in a small upstate New York town.
“Tom Homan should know: We don’t scare easy.”
“It’s pretty clueless for someone to be insulting our police commissioner,” Wu told reporters in response to Homan’s comments. “We want to be sure to say Boston is welcoming and safe for everyone.”
She later doubled-down on her support for Cox in a follow-up post to the social media app 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.”
The problem for Democrats in both states is that voters are clearly and overwhelmingly on the side of increased immigration enforcement. And the more they fight against the Trump administration, the more they remind voters their party is out of the mainstream on the issue.
In a new Harvard-Harris poll, 81 percent of respondents said they support deporting illegal immigrants in the U.S. who are guilty of additional crimes. And a recent Axios-Ipsos poll found 66 percent of Americans support the mass deportation of all illegal aliens.
The headlines from Massachusetts aren’t helping Democrats, either.
On Monday, immigration authorities announced the arrest of a Brazilian national charged with raping a Massachusetts resident.
Hours earlier, they announced the arrest of a Guatemalan national accused of a series of violent crimes who had previously been deported multiple times.
“Edelio Agustin-Orellana illegally re-entered the U.S. Aug. 4, 2019, near Del Rio, Texas, and ICE lodged an immigration detainer against Agustin with Brockton District Court Feb. 20, 2024, following his arrest for armed home invasion,” according to a release. “The Brockton District Court refused to honor the ICE detainer and released Agustin from custody.”
And over the weekend, federal agents working in Boston and other Massachusetts cities arrested almost two dozen members of the Dominican-based Trinitarios gang accused of murder and racketeering charges.
“The Massachusetts Trinitarios allegedly recruit new members among communities of legal immigrants and illegal aliens from the Dominican Republic – specifically juveniles in local high schools in Lawrence and Lynn,” according to a U.S. Department of Justice press release.
They are the latest in a series of crimes committed by illegal immigrants in Massachusetts in recent months, including multiple incidents of sex crimes targeting minors.
Perhaps that’s why polls show that even in liberal Massachusetts, Democrats like Gov. Maura Healey are out of step with voters on the illegal immigration issue. A new UMass-Amherst poll found a majority (52 percent) 0f Bay State voters rated Healey’s handling of immigration as “not too well” or “not well at all.”
Meanwhile in New Hampshire, Democratic opposition to immigration enforcement appears to be softening.
Earlier this month, House lawmakers in Concord passed a bill banning pro-illegal immigration “sanctuary city” policies by a 351-6 margin. Less than a year ago, all but one Democrat voted to block a nearly identical bill, successfully killing it.
Still the local ACLU is fighting against the Trump administration’s plan to house illegal immigrant detainees at a federal prison in Berlin.
ACLU-NH Policy Director Amanda Azad said the policy would send “immigrants facing civil — not criminal — charges” to a medium-security federal prison “in one of the northernmost cities in the entire state, isolated from their family, advocates, and potential legal services.”
The organization announced the filing of a Freedom of Information Act request for additional information regarding the federal proposal.
