The Trump administration announced the beginning of a second immigration crackdown in Boston last week, rattling advocacy organizations in support of the city’s immigrant communities.
Plans for Patriot 2.0, an Immigration Customs Enforcement operation in Massachusetts, were revealed Sept. 6, following a Department of Justice lawsuit challenging Boston’s sanctuary city policies filed Sept. 4.
“ICE has refused to provide any information about their activities in Boston and refuses to issue warrants, while we hear reports of ICE agents taking parents as they are dropping their kids off at school,” wrote Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s press office in a statement to the Daily Free Press. “That does not make our community safer.”
Immigrants make up nearly 28% of Boston’s population, according to 2022 United States census data, and approximately 23% are undocumented.
The Boston Trust Act, enacted in 2014 and amended in 2019, outlines the Boston Police Department’s ability to refuse cooperation with federal law enforcement in civil immigration cases.
“The City of Boston and its Mayor have been among the worst sanctuary offenders in America,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi in a statement regarding the DOJ’s lawsuit. “They explicitly enforce policies designed to undermine law enforcement and protect illegal aliens from justice.”
“It’s atrocious. It’s appalling,” said executive director of A Faith that Does Justice, Inc. Thomas Dwyer, referring to Patriot 2.0. AFTDJ is a national organization that aims to help immigrant and minority communities from injustice.
“It’s hard to find enough words to describe the meanness of what is occurring right today,” he said.
Despite claims by the Trump administration of “illegal alien crime” in Boston, rates of homicide, rape and robberies have decreased in the past year.
Homicide was down 35% from 2023 to 2024, according to the Boston Regional Intelligence Center.
However, domestic aggravated assault and non-domestic aggravated assault rose by 6% and 2%, respectively.
Marlon Solomon, founder of Afrimerican Academy, a Boston-based educational program for underserved communities, said he believes an intensive ICE operation could result in immigrants who are subject to crimes being hesitant to seek help out of fear of deportation.
“They’re scared. They’re changing their behavior,” he said. “They’re avoiding authorities, which is very dangerous.”
While immigrants have faced hostility from the federal government in past years, Heloisa Galvão, co-founder and executive director of the Brazilian Women’s Group, said it’s “never been at this level.”
“People are not being arrested,” she said. “They are being kidnapped, violently, out of the street by masked, armed men that do not identify them, and we don’t know where they take people.”
The Brazilian Women’s Group, a Boston-based nonprofit aiming to uplift Brazilian communities, offers support for immigrants who have had family members arrested or deported.
“I’m telling you the stories that we hear from families and from people in prison. They are hungry. They are thirsty,” said Galvão. “They are treated like … animals.”
Some activists said immigrants are hesitant to secure the services these organizations provide.
“They are scared to go to doctor’s appointments,” Galvão said. “They’re scared to take the children to school. They are scared to go shopping. They are scared to go to work.”
Dwyer said people have been afraid of attending English courses and other language programs led by A Faith that Does Justice.
“It wasn’t a good environment previously, but it’s a horrible environment right today,” he said.
An initial line of defense against ICE arrests consisted of “Know Your Rights” cards, which some organizations hoped would prevent unconstitutional arrests, said Paul Belfanti, president of the Immigrant Support Alliance, an organization that helps integrate refugees and asylum seekers into communities.
Belfanti educates immigrants on their rights when approached by authorities. Officers must have reasonable suspicion that a person is undocumented to detain them without a warrant.
“ICE tactics are blowing all that out of the water,” he said. “They’re ignoring a lot of that stuff.”
Across the country, officers clad in masks and plain-clothes are pulling people from the street into unmarked cars. The Supreme Court recently lifted restrictions that barred authorities carrying out raids in Los Angeles from detaining people based on vague criteria, such as their job and the language they speak.
“I expect that they will come violently against us,” Galvão said. “We have to be prepared. We have to know our rights.”
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