Boston, MA – July 5: Boston Mayor Michelle Wu meets with the media before a Cape Verde Independence Day ceremony at City Hall Plaza. (Photo by John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is set to testify before Congress next month at a hearing on several cities' sanctuary city policies, the chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform said Wednesday.
Wu confirmed she would participate in the March 5 hearing in a statement shared with NBC10 Boston Wednesday evening:
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I have accepted the Committee’s invitation to share our work to make Boston the safest major city in America. The Boston Police Department partners every day with community groups and all levels of law enforcement to protect our city and our residents, and I look forward to highlighting their hard work and successes. I thank Congresswoman Pressley and Congressman Lynch, who serve on the committee, and the entire Massachusetts federal delegation, for their partnership in fighting for families in Boston and across the Commonwealth.
Committee chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky, has a different view of the city, saying that the policies of Boston, New York City, Chicago and Denver, all of whose mayors his office said would be at the hearing, "prioritize criminal illegal aliens over the American people."
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Comer's statement continued that the Republican-led committee "will press these mayors for answers and examine measures to enforce compliance with federal immigration law."
When Comer announced the investigation last week, requesting documents and city communications involved in the policy as well, Wu's attendance wasn't guaranteed, not least of all because she just gave birth to her third child.
She told NBC10 Boston last week, "We're very proud of Boston's track record as the safest major city in the country, so we know that what we've been doing here is working," she added.
Under sanctuary city policies, city staff are limited in how they cooperate with federal immigration enforcement activity. On Wednesday, newly confirmed U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memo ending funding to states and cities that interfere with federal law enforcement and directs federal prosecutors to take action against jurisdictions that do so.
Boston is one of several sanctuary cities in Massachusetts, under a local policy that dates back over a decade. Wu defended it after Trump's re-election, having campaigned on the promise of an immigration crackdown that now appears to be materializing in the city and across the country in the first week of his second term.
The congressional hearing was initially planned for Feb. 11. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform didn't share why the date of the hearing was pushed back to March 5.
