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Federal immigration enforcement has contacted the Cambridge Police Department at least six times in 2025, an increase from previous years and the sharpest indication yet that the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has arrived on Harvard’s doorstep.
ICE most recently contacted CPD on September 6 asking for information on a previous arrest that police made in Cambridge, Police Commissioner Christine A. Elow told the City Council at a hearing yesterday. She added that Cambridge police have consistently declined to cooperate with ICE in line with the city’s sanctuary status.
“Every interaction we’ve had with them, it’s involved somebody who has been under arrest,” Elow said. “We’re not seeing anything of picking children up off of streets or anything.”
CPD had four total interactions with ICE in 2024, representing a slight decline from the first eight months of this year. Elow added that “we do not have any information” indicating that ICE has operated in Cambridge without notifying CPD, and that police officers have been instructed to wear uniforms with identifying placards on their back.
This clarification comes just days after vehicles with ICE logos were seen patrolling the streets of Harvard Square. At the time, CPD said they were not aware of any federal law enforcement officials in the area, and an ICE spokesperson did not confirm any agency presence in Cambridge.
Councilor Jivan G. Sobrinho-Wheeler pressed Elow for information on the late May arrest of three undocumented immigrants who worked at The Phoenix Landing, a restaurant in Central Square, which was first reported by Cambridge Day.
Elow confirmed that none of the workers were detained in Cambridge.
Before the September request, ICE asked CPD for information on undocumented immigrants in Cambridge on August 20, June 4, May 10, and February 23, Elow said. A Cambridge resident also reported to CPD on February 19 that ICE had knocked on their door asking for information about a specific individual, though CPD did not interact with ICE directly, Elow added.
ICE has arrested at least one person in Cambridge so far, which Elow first told councilors about in late May. In that incident, Cambridge police checked the fingerprints of a woman arrested for shoplifting against a national criminal database as part of a routine booking, which alerted ICE. Federal agents then arrested the woman after she left the station, though Cambridge police declined to assist them.
Elow’s comments came on the back of an increase in federal immigration enforcement throughout the Boston area in an operation labeled Operation Patriot 2.0. The move was first reported by The New York Times and confirmed by a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Saturday.
“If you come to our country illegally and break our laws, we will hunt you down, arrest you, deport you, and you will never return,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement that night.
—Staff writer Matan H. Josephy can be reached matan.josephy@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @matanjosephy.
