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Today we’re taking a look at data about people detained by federal immigration agents in Boston’s courthouses. But first: with more immigration agents detaining people in Minnesota, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell said she’s talking to her counterparts there and in other states “who are seeing unprecedented attacks, in many ways, by ICE agents and sometimes Border Patrol agents within their communities.”
“I’m continuing to stay in contact with them to support them in how we hold ICE and federal administration officials accountable,” Campbell told GBH’s Boston Public Radio. “It is not easy for us to do, but we are all on the same page that accountability is necessary. I also hope we do not see what we’re seeing in Illinois right now, in Oregon and in Minnesota, here in Massachusetts.” You can hear her full remarks here.
Four Things to Know
1. A former Boston police superintendent, Marcus Eddings, is suing the department, saying its leaders demoted him after he tried to investigate overtime fraud involving more than 40 officers.
“We think what the commissioner did in demoting Mr. Eddings in retaliation for him pursuing these investigations of both policy and legal violations is pernicious and wrong,” Jack Bartholet, Eddings’ lawyer, told GBH’s Saraya Wintersmith. Boston Police Department officials declined to comment because the lawsuit is ongoing.
2. The companies behind Revolution Wind can once again resume construction on the offshore wind project 12 miles off Martha’s Vineyard, which had stopped because the Trump administration issued a stop-work order for wind farms along the East Coast.
A federal judge ruled this week that the company’s lawsuit against the Trump administration is likely to succeed, so they may resume construction while the case proceeds through the legal process. But they’re still on deadline: the vessel they’re using to install wind turbines may need to leave the site for other projects in about 40 days.
3. Almost 7,000 international students enrolled at Harvard this year, making up 28% of the student population — the highest share in two decades. Despite a 17% drop in international student enrollment nationwide (more on that here), Harvard and American colleges in general, still carry a lot of pull globally, said Clay Harmon, director of the Association of International Enrollment Management.
“Despite recent events and recent headlines, we’re known worldwide as the gold standard for higher education that offers the best opportunities for international students,” Harmon said. “Even if a prospective student were ambivalent about coming to the United States, if they were to be admitted to Harvard, there’s a very likely chance that they would be more willing to go for that institution than some other institution in the U.S.”
4. Three players from the Boston Fleet — the city’s Professional Women’s Hockey League team — will join the U.S. women’s Olympic hockey team this year in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. They are captain Megan Keller, who already has a gold medal from the 2018 Games and a silver medal from 2022; and first-time Olympians goalie Aerin Frankel and defender Haley Winn.
And some of their teammates from across the world will be representing their home countries: forward Alina Müller is playing for Switzerland, forward Laura Kluge for Germany, forward Susanna Tapani is playing for Finland and defender Daniela Pejšová for Czechia.
Data offers glimpse into ICE agents’ presence in Boston district courts
Federal immigration agents detained at least 54 people in Boston’s municipal courthouses in 2025, and at least one person in the first two weeks of this year, according to trial court data obtained by GBH News reporter Sarah Betancourt. Almost half of those detainments — 20 of the 54 — happened in East Boston’s courthouse. Agents detained another 110 people at the Moakley Federal Courthouse in Boston’s Seaport last year, according to the Deportation Data Project at the University of California, Berkeley and University of California, Los Angeles.
So how do these detainments happen, and what do they mean for the criminal and civil court systems — which are separate from immigration courts? Here’s a quick primer.
When local police officers arrest someone, they immediately share the person’s fingerprints with an FBI database. The FBI shares that database with ICE.
There are also cases where there’s no criminal case involved at all — like people coming to court for small claims or housing disputes.
“We also are seeing ICE make arrests of people coming to court on their own, so they will wait and hear the name of the person when their case is called and then they will make that arrest as soon as that hearing is completed,” Jennifer Klein, director of the Immigration Impact Unit at the state’s public defense agency, Committee for Public Counsel Services, told Betancourt.
And when immigration agents detain someone, that can mean the legal proceeding they came to court for has no way to proceed without them.
“Courts are meant to uphold due process, not serve as pipelines to detention,” Juan Soler, rapid response coordinator for the LUCE Immigrant Justice Network of Massachusetts, told Betancourt. “When ICE uses courthouses as staging grounds for arrests, it turns justice into a trap and violates the fundamental promise of equal protection under the law. Massachusetts must act to ensure that those most impacted can seek justice without fear — because a legal system built on intimidation is neither fair nor constitutional.”
You can find more examples and a map of all the immigration detentions in Boston courthouses here.
Dig deeper:
-After detention: What life’s been like for four immigrants in New England
-Immigrants kept from Faneuil Hall citizenship ceremony as feds crackdown nationwide
-Local immigrants prepare guardianship paperwork in case they’re detained by ICE
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