Nearly 1,500 suspected unlawful immigrants were seized in Massachusetts last month by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials during an agency surge dubbed “Operation Patriot,” officials announced Monday.
Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, U. S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Leah Foley and Patricia Hyde, field director of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations in Boston revealed the roundup in a joint press conference. Hyde said 1,461 “criminal alien offenders” were apprehended with a little more than half having “significant criminality” and 277 “ordered removed from the United States by a Justice Department immigration judge.”
Officials released little information on the detained individuals and their charges aside from photos of 14 men who they said were part of the collection of “dangerous criminal aliens” apprehended as part of the surge.
“Throughout this enhanced immigration enforcement operation, ICE and our federal partners targeted the most dangerous alien offenders in some of the most crime-infested neighborhoods of Massachusetts,” Hyde told reporters. “We arrested criminal aliens who have been convicted of violent crimes in the United States, and some of who were wanted for criminality in their native countries. All made the mistake of attempting to subvert justice by hiding out in Massachusetts.”
The annoucement follows a series of intensely scrutinized ICE seizures across the state, including a Worcester mother whose daughter was arrested by local police after she and a crowd tried to interrupt the detention, and an 18-year-old Milford High student detained over the weekend. Officials revealed Monday that the teenager was apprehended as part of an ICE operation targeting his father. Many in Massachusetts have been criticalof ICE’s actions against people who may be in the country without legal status, but appear to lack any other criminal charges or convictions and are otherwise valued community members.
In a separate press conference Monday, Governor Maura Healey called the Milford incident “terrible,” and called on ICE to release the teen and examine the process that led to his apprehension.
“Because they have made mistakes,” Healey said of the federal agency. “Unless ICE has additional information that would substantiate that this individual has some criminal involvement, he should be released.”
“They’ve said nothing about criminal involvement [and] we have no reason to believe that there was any criminal involvement,” Healey continued, pointing to the discrepancy between ICE’s claim that the agency is focused on apprehending the most dangerous criminals, and the teenager’s apparent lack of criminal involvement.
Lyons criticized scrutiny of ICE operations as “talking points” that miss the importance of public safety and blamed the agency’s controversial operations on the lack of cooperation with ICE from Massachusetts cities and towns.
“If sanctuary cities would change their policies and turn these violent criminal aliens over to us into our custody, instead of releasing him into the public, we would not have to go out to the communities and do this,” he said.
Massachusetts abides by a 2017 Supreme Judicial Court ruling that state court officers have no authority to arrest and hold an individual based solely on a federal civil immigration detainer beyond the time that individual would otherwise be entitled to release. Despite that, Healey has consistently asserted that Massachusetts is not a sanctuary state.
On Monday, the governor said that while she and many others agree that criminals should be removed from communities, “by their own admission, [ICE officials] have also arrested several hundreds of individuals in Massachusetts and taken them away who do not have criminal records.”
“As a matter of due process, and because everybody should be following the law here, ICE should be producing information about who has been arrested, what they’ve been charged with, what their circumstance was, and they should make that available to the publc,” she said.
ICE did not immediately respond to a GBH News inquiry regarding whether the detained individuals’ names and charges would be publicly released.
Lyons also briefly addressed the use of masks by ICE agents who have been filmed apprehending people with obscured faces and a lack of an otherwise clear identification like a nametag, as many local police officers possess.
“They are wearing those masks because we were in an operation with the Secret Service [and] we arrested someone that was going online, taking their photos, posting their families, their kids’ Instagram, their kids Facebooks, and targeting them,” Lyons’ said, pointing to an apparent recent incident out of California.
“I’m sorry if people are offended by them wearing masks, but I’m not gonna let my officers and agents go out there and put their lives on the line, and their family on the lines, because people don’t like what immigration enforcement is.”
Foley said Monday that since President Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20th, her office has charged “well over 50 foreign nationals who unlawfully reentered our country after being deported,” including 15 who were apprehended as part of May’s “Operation Patriot.”
Both Lyons and Foley said they intend to pursue the seizure and removal of immigrants without legal status, particularly those who are accused of criminal activity, or have pending criminal cases.
Foley also warned of consequences for people who attempt to interrupt ICE enforcements as they continue.
“We will not tolerate anyone who impedes or obstructs ICE operations,” she said, adding that she has seen “concerning” footage on news and social media channels.
“Agents’ safety is paramount and it is a felony to threaten or assault a federal agent,” Foley said. “The law in this area is clear, and I will not sit idly by and watch federal agents being threatened.”
