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The Trump administration has begun rolling out its next surge of immigration enforcement in Boston, even as the federal government sued the city over a policy limiting police collaboration with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The surge, dubbed Operation Patriot 2.0, is expected to last several weeks, according to a Saturday report by the New York Times. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security confirmed the move Saturday afternoon.
“ICE is arresting sex offenders, pedophiles, murderers, drug dealers, and gang members released by local authorities,” the spokesperson wrote in a Saturday statement to The Crimson.
The scope of the operation is expected to extend beyond Boston, according to the Times, which cited two unnamed federal officials. The Times added that federal agents are targeting undocumented immigrants recently released from local police custody.
Similar arrests have already happened in Cambridge. ICE arrested Leidy Torres Castano, 35, of Revere, in May outside of the Cambridge Police Department minutes after she had been released from custody. Cambridge police had arrested Castano over a misdemeanor theft from a Central Square convenience store.
ICE agents contacted CPD after Castano had been booked, seeking to arrest her on a civil immigration detainer. CPD declined to assist in the federal agents’ arrest, releasing Castano hours later. After leaving the police station, Castano was detained by ICE.
A DHS spokesperson did not specify when the department’s current operation began. ICE social media accounts have boasted that Operation Patriot 2.0 is “cleaning up the mess left by the city's sanctuary policies.”
Reports of ICE agents near Harvard’s campus spread quickly among students Friday afternoon.
Students saw three vehicles marked with ICE lettering and the slogan “Defend the Homeland” driving in Harvard Square on Friday. The vehicles were photographed parked on Mt. Auburn Street and filmed driving toward Central Square.
A spokesperson for the agency did not confirm ICE presence in Cambridge. A CPD spokesperson wrote that he had “no knowledge” of the vehicles.
Confirmed arrests by ICE in Cambridge over the last several months include Castano and four employees of a Central Square restaurant who were arrested in late May. But CPD’s knowledge of potential activity is limited. Federal agencies are, in most cases, not required to notify local police of any enforcement activity or arrest.
Operation Patriot 2.0 comes amid an ongoing effort by the Trump administration to force sanctuary cities across the country to cooperate with ICE. The DHS accused Cambridge, Boston, and more than 200 other municipalities with sanctuary city ordinances of defying federal law in May. The list — which threatened to require the cities to “renew their obligation to protect American citizens, not dangerous illegal aliens” — was quietly taken down days later.
The Department of Justice also filed suit against Boston Mayor Michelle Wu ’07 over the Boston Trust Act, a city policy prohibiting police from working with ICE on civil immigration enforcement officers. The suit asks a U.S. District Court judge to block enforcement of the Act, opening the doors for Boston officers to assist ICE agents.
Wu has continuously come under fire from Republicans in Washington for her city’s sanctuary city policy. She appeared before the House Oversight Committee in March to testify on the policy, standing firm in her defense of the city’s record on crime and immigration.
The current surge is the second recent major escalation of immigration enforcement in the Boston area by the federal government. Federal agents made almost 1,500 arrests under the first Operation Patriot in May and June, claiming to target the “worst first.”
Nearly half of the 1,461 arrested were “collateral arrests” — undocumented immigrants who were not targeted but were near the operation.
“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 DHS spokesperson wrote.
—Staff writer Matan H. Josephy can be reached matan.josephy@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @matanjosephy.
—Staff writer Laurel M. Shugart can be reached at laurel.shugart@thecrimson.com. Follow them on X @laurelmshugart.
