Trump admin hits Boston with deadline to lift obstacles to immigration enforcement

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has given leaders in Boston and other “sanctuary jurisdictions” until Tuesday to explain how they’ll lift any obstacles to federal immigration enforcement efforts in their cities.

“You are hereby notified that your jurisdiction has been identified as one that engages in sanctuary policies and practices that thwart federal immigration enforcement to the detriment of the interests of the United States,” Bondi wrote, according to NBC 10 in Boston and other outlets.

“This ends immediately. By Tuesday, August 19, 2025, please submit a response to this letter that confirms your commitment to complying with federal law and identifies the immediate initiatives you are taking to eliminate laws, policies, and practices that impede federal immigration enforcement,” Bondi wrote.

Last week, the U.S. Justice Department published a list of 35 jurisdictions, including Boston, that officials have identified as having policies, laws, or regulations that “impede enforcement of federal immigration laws.”

• Read More: Law, Order, and Political Theater: Why Trump’s D.C. crackdown echoes in Boston

The list of cities, counties, and states includes many Democratic-leaning communities, such as Boston. Massachusetts, as a state, however, is not included on the list.

The Justice Department’s statement referenced an executive order signed by President Donald Trump on April 28 that accuses American states and local officials of using “their authority to violate, obstruct, and defy the enforcement of Federal immigration laws,” MassLive previously reported.

The letters from Bondi’s office didn’t mention what penalty, if any, the communities would face if they failed to comply, according to published reports.

Bondi elaborated on the letters during a Thursday interview with Fox News, saying she had “sent out letters to all of these mayors and to the governors, saying, ‘You must comply. We want to know what you’re doing to comply with our federal government.’ So we’re going to see. I’ll let you know how they respond.”

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s office could not immediately be reached for comment for this story.

But a decade-old city law known as the “Trust Act” sets down specific parameters for Boston’s cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

The federal immigration agency has separate divisions for Enforcement and Removal Operations and Homeland Security Investigations.

The latter works on public safety issues like human trafficking or drug and weapons trafficking, and Boston police can freely collaborate with the federal agency on these criminal issues.

However, the Trust Act prohibits local police from working with ICE on civil immigration enforcement efforts.

More specifically, police officers are prohibited from asking people about their immigration status, sharing information with ICE, making arrests or holding someone based on ICE administrative warrants if there is no other criminal charge, transferring anyone to ICE custody or otherwise “performing the functions of an immigration officer.”

If ICE personnel believe a person in police custody could be eligible for deportation, they may issue an immigration detainer requesting local law enforcement notify ICE before the person is released or hold them for an additional 48 hours to give federal agents the chance to take them into custody. Detainers are based on civil, not criminal, violations.

Under the Trust Act, BPD does not carry out these detainer requests.

Boston police are also required to provide an annual report to the city on the number of civil immigration detainer requests received from ICE, the number of people that were detained by city police, transferred to ICE custody or arrested in relation to criminal reentry during unrelated police activity and the total federal cost reimbursements the department received.

The law was updated in 2019 to strengthen limits on information sharing between police and ICE and mandate training for officers on the policy.

Boston City Council reaffirmed its support for the law in 2024, and Wu vigorously defended it during an appearance before a U.S. House committee earlier this year.