With Boston’s sanctuary city policy under scrutiny from the Trump administration and the Republican majority in the House, Mayor Michelle Wu stepped out of the city and visited prominent immigrant support group La Colaborativa in Chelsea, taking questions from people she called “the type of inspiration that members of Congress need to know about.”
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Mayor Michelle Wu stepped out of Boston to visit one of the most prominent immigrant support organizations in Massachusetts, La Colaborativa, in neighboring Chelsea on Wednesday.
The visit happened ahead of the mayor's testimony to the U.S. House Oversight Committee in Washington next Wednesday and after Trump border czar Tom Homan directed attacks at Boston and sanctuary cities over the weekend.
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Wu took questions from an audience eager to express their concerns about the Trump administration's crackdown on illegal immigration and the impact on businesses and schools.
"We come here to work, we don't come here to commit crimes," said East Boston resident Sandra Aleman Nijjar, from El Salvador.
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Wu has been gearing up for a battle of words with lawmakers in D.C., where she and three other mayors will be discussing their cities' immigrant sanctuary policies.
"In that room were several hundred examples of the type of inspiration that members of Congress need to know about," said Wu, referring to the people who heard her speak at La Colaborativa. "Communities are safest when communities are healthy and thriving together."
The head of La Colaborativa, Gladys Vega, also intends to be present during the hearing.
"Being undocumented or documented, it's just a paper, and what counts is the contributions that we make to this commonwealth day in and day out, and I want to be in the audience to represent that," Vega said.
Boston Globe columnist and associate editor Marcela Garcia expects the mayor to be grilled by Republicans while she touts Boston's record on public safety.
"They're just going to probably ignore the data," she said. "But that doesn't mean that there is no value in her saying on a national stage, 'Look at look at what I've done with Boston,' and, 'This is the safest ... one of the safest cities in the country," Garcia said.
The Massachusetts Republican Party sees the hearing as an opportunity to hold Wu's feet to the fire.
"Wu isn't going to D.C. to defend public safety, she's going to defend her political image," said Mass GOP spokesman Logan Trupiano. "She's never really had to defend her policies against a critical audience and I think she's going to be taken to task."
More sanctuary city news
Critics decry sanctuary policies that prevent local police from holding immigrant criminals for ICE once they post bond or get released from jail, while Wu and others say criminals do get prosecuted in Massachusetts, no matter their immigration status, and that state law dictates that they not help enforce federal immigration law.
Wu said Wednesday that she wants Boston and the rest of the state "to be a home for everyone," and that when "everything around you feels like barriers and the government coming at you, that is an impossible situation."
