Following President Donald Trump’s recent executive order on immigration, a surge of sweeps by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents has sparked anxiety for immigration advocates and families nationwide.
Massachusetts leaders have vehemently resisted Trump’s orders, from Attorney General Maura Healey’s promise to meet Trump’s plan with “fierce opposition” to Mayor Marty Walsh’s vow to to protect undocumented immigrants at risk of deportation. Police Commissioner Bill Evans reported zero cases turned over to ICE in 2016.
So what happens when ICE comes to Boston?
According to Evans, ICE has the right to perform deportation raids in Boston, without any local approval whatsoever.
“If they have civil process and they have the right to do it under federal guidelines, they can, but we won’t participate in anything like that,” Evans said during an interview with Boston Public Radio Tuesday. “They don’t even have to notify us.”
Trump’s executive order contains a policy calling to expand a federal effort to use local law enforcement as de facto immigration agents, a program that was scaled back in the Obama administration.
“I’ve always said we’re not the immigration police,” Evans said. “If someone is a violent felon, obviously they will get turned over, but other than that, we won’t participate in any immigration raids.”
Ultimately, Evans says, the most important decision in these cases is whether or not to grant bail, which is decided by neither immigration officers nor local police.
“We have nothing to do with raids right now anywhere in the city of Boston,” Evans said. “Our procedure hasn’t changed, if we lock someone up, we fingerprint them, and the fingerprints get sent to the state police, FBI, Homeland Security and ICE. If they want to put a detainer on it, that’s their decision, but everyone has access to bail. The ultimate decider of whether or not anyone goes loose in the bail commissioner. We don’t make that call at all.”
Despite resistance from local police to act as immigration officers, it is technically within the legal right of ICE agents to pretend to be local police during raids in an effort to gain entry to private residences and perform arrests. With ICE agents using ‘deportation ruses’ and other tactics to find and arrest illegal immigrants, Evans says local immigrant communities are becoming less trustworthy of local police.
“I’m fearful because we have large immigration communities like East Boston, where we’re having major issues around young kids getting killed [due] to violence,” Evans said. “It’s hard enough now to get them to talk and to build trust and respect, and I think what’s going on now is hurting our efforts and the whole idea of community policing, especially in immigrant communities.”
Evans spoke at a church in East Boston in early February, alongside Mayor Walsh and Cardinal Séan O’Malley, and urged the immigrant community to maintain their trust in the local police.
“I made it clear that we’re not the immigration police, we’re here for you,” Evans said. “Don’t be afraid of us, because that’s not who we are, and that’s not who the mayor wants his police department to be.”
To hear Commissioner Evans’ full interview with Boston Public Radio, click on the audio link above.
