Mayor Wu says ICE hasn't contacted Boston police, officers won't play role in mass deportations

Mayor Michelle Wu said Tuesday that ICE hasn't contacted Boston police, and local officers won't play a role in any mass deportations that might take place.

During an appearance on GBH News' "Boston Public Radio" program, Wu was asked about whether she expects any repercussions after she chided "border czar" Tom Homan during her testimony before Congress last week. Homan in recent months has made a point to target Wu, at one point pledging he would be "bringing hell" to Boston as he sought to crack down on undocumented immigration.

"No, ICE generally has not been in contact with Boston police to give notice," Wu said Tuesday. "As far as we can tell, they are really still functionally sticking to the tactics used under the Biden administration."

The mayor also said "it's a false statement," that Boston is not cooperating with ICE on criminal issues.

"We do that with any federal agency, any state agency whenever there is a criminal warrant," she said. "In terms of mass deportation, our officers will not play a role in that, and we have not gotten any advance notice from the Trump administration about what they will do."

In her first appearance on GBH since last week's testimony, Wu received a standing ovation as she entered the Boston Public Library, which co-host Jim Braude said was the first in the show's history. She brought her newborn baby, Mira, with her, and even fed her while conducting the interview.

Braude and co-host Margery Eagan also asked Wu about her experience in Washington, D.C., last week.

"It was a long day, I'll say that," she said. "It had just been hyped up so much beforehand, right? There was a movie trailer for a congressional hearing, and lots of continued threats and targeting of Boston and our police commissioner and various things that we believe are really important to including everyone in our community."

"So I was proud to go down there and raise my right hand, swear to tell the truth and then talk about Boston as the best city in the world. We're the safest major city, we have so much going on, and it's because we are a community that includes everyone."

Braude and Eagan also asked if Wu is worried about retribution by congressional Republicans or the Trump administration in response to her testimony.

"I mean, this is extremely serious, and as much as it can seem like a sort of show or production when you're watching it, these are... Congress has power, and poeople who are in the federal government have real power to enact consequences on federal funding, to follow through on some of the threats around the prosecution of individual people or referral to the Department of Justice, so we are going to continue to provide the information that committee was seeking..."

"It does feel like much of this is designed to silence people, to say 'If you just keep your mouth shut or quietly change your policies, if you do what we want and satisfy our political whims right now, maybe you'll have a chance of surviving better.' That's not an alternative that's acceptable to our community members and how we can live for the next four years. We follow laws and we tell the truth. We have to tell the truth. At the end of the day, I still believe that matters and that's what's important in representing our communities."

Wu was also asked about the $650,000 the city spent on outside lawyers to help her prepare for the hearing and provide requested information and documents to Congress.

"It is money that I very, very much wish we did not have to spend at all, and time from my staff and my team that could have gone to much better, much more important things," she said. "But the stakes are high... When there's threats to put me in jail, to take away funidng, I needed to make sure I was doing everything possible to represent our city well, to represent our policies with complete accuracy. Having legal represetnation was important for that."

The mayor also spoke about the challenge of participating in a full day of testimony while also trying to care for and feed a newborn baby, and about how she was able to make it to Ash Wednesday services before the hearing.

"It was a full, heavy day," she said. "I've gotten ashes every Ash Wednesday, usually at City Hall where we invite a local priest to come and provide that for anyone in City Hall who's interested. I'm very grateful the archdiocese connected us to a church right by the hotel and we were able to go there early before the hearing. I had my usual connection to faith and this moment thinking about our place in the world. We're just small, humble human beings who will eventually go back to ashes and dust. Maybe that's why I felt so calm as well heading into this. There are more important things -- understanding our humanity, connection to each other, doing right and being good people in the world, taking care of others and being part of the community."

Wu said she had spoken to the committee ahead of time to let them know she would need to take breaks every 90 minutes to 2 hours during the hearing to feed Mira, which she did on numerous occasions. She also called her husband Conor Pewarski the "hero of the day," for walking all around the Capitol with their daughter in between those feedings.