Agents with the ICE Boston field office are not slowing down during the federal government shutdown as they continue to target criminal illegal aliens across the region, but for no pay.
A spokesperson for ICE’s Enforcement Removal Operations Boston office has confirmed to the Herald that agents are still working amid the shutdown. They will not be paid, however, until a discount is reached, the spokesperson said.
The confirmation comes after the Department of Homeland Security stated on Wednesday, the first day of the shutdown, that the agency would continue “arresting the worst of the worst criminals,” touting how it detained an illegal alien in Framingham the day before.
ICE is flush with cash and recruits after Congress passed a bill over the summer that injected the agency with $76.5 billion to speed up President Trump’s deportation push. The agency then launched a new recruiting website offering hiring bonuses as high as $50,000.
The spending package, dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” is allowing ICE to keep hiring, training and deploying law enforcement “across the country to make America safe again,” according to Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin.
“Democratic politicians have villainized our brave ICE law enforcement,” McLaughlin said in a statement, “calling them the Nazi Gestapo, the Secret Police, and kidnappers, and immediately they are putting our officers’ families under financial strains. They might put politics first, but we won’t — the deportations will continue. We will continue to put the safety of the American people FIRST.”
McLauglin’s statement accompanied a release that highlighted how ICE Boston arrested a 35-year-old violent criminal alien from Guatemala, Mario Torres-Herrera, on Tuesday.
ICE said that Torres-Herrera was convicted of assault with a dangerous weapon in Framingham and sentenced to 18 months in prison.
The agency spokesperson did not immediately respond to a Herald inquiry for details on illegal aliens who have been detained across the region amid the shutdown.
President Donald Trump is seizing on the government shutdown as an opportunity to reshape the federal workforce and punish detractors. He met with budget director Russ Vought on Thursday to talk through “temporary or permanent” spending cuts that could set up a lose-lose dynamic for Democratic lawmakers.
Senators took Thursday off in observance of the Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur. They are scheduled to return on Friday to vote again on a GOP measure to extend federal funding for seven weeks.
ICE Boston’s continued enforcement efforts come after last month’s Operation Patriot 2.0, in which hundreds of federal agents from across the country traveled to Massachusetts to crack down on criminal illegal aliens.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
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