The attacks between the incoming Trump administration and Massachusetts officials over immigration policies, enforcement, and sanctuary cities continues to intensify.
Massachusetts isn't a sanctuary state, but it is the only right-to-shelter state, which is a draw for undocumented immigrants and a target for the incoming "border czar," Tom Homan.
WATCH ANYTIME FOR FREE
 |
>Stream NBC10 Boston news for free, 24/7, wherever you are. |
"She's not very smart," Homan said of Boston Mayor Michelle Wu during a Monday interview.
"People can say whatever they want about me," Wu replied during a press scrum on Wednesday.
Get updates on what's happening in Boston to your inbox. Sign up for our >News Headlines newsletter.
The clash over immigration policies is drawing more fire, with more voices joining the back-and-forth.
"There needs to be focus on the border," Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey told reporters on Wednesday.
Trump's new pick for a Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk, took to X, the social media platform he owns, to criticize sanctuary cities and their leaders.
Musk cited recent arrests by the Boston branch of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
At the center of the debate is the role of ICE in local communities and whether those communities will help the Trump administration in delivering a major campaign promise deporting undocumented immigrants.
There are currently eight sanctuary cities in the Bay State: Boston, Cambridge, Amherst, Concord, Lawrence, Newton, Northampton and Somerville.
The town of Natick recently published a sanctuary policy document to be further reviewed by town leaders before putting it up for a vote.
Get top local stories in Boston delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC Boston's News Headlines newsletter.
"What you will see is the very focused targeting of the worst of the worst criminals, and there's no shortage of them in Boston," said Julian Calderas, CEO of Xfed Global CEO and former deputy director of ICE's San Antonio Office.
Calderas said the anticipated national crackdown will prioritize public safety and national security threats, not low-level criminals.
"The boogeyman's not going to come knocking on their door and take their children away in the middle of the night. That's not reality," he said.
Calderas referenced the 2017 Massachusetts Lunn decision by the state's Supreme Judicial Court, preventing any state or local police from detaining someone based on an immigration detainer.
"Even though we have some laws to prevent jails and courthouses from holding people for ICE, that doesn't stop them from communicating with ICE," noted Boston Immigration Justice Accompaniment Network activist Annie Gonzalez.
Gonzalez praised the state's efforts to protect undocumented migrants, but called on the governor to do more to shelter unhoused migrants.
"So that people are not experiencing homelessness on the street that can lead to interactions with police, that can lead to deportations," she said.
Calderas urged residents to report serious crimes to ICE to help rid communities of dangerous criminals, noting the limited resources ICE has in New England, but to avoid reporting people for the sole suspicion of being in the country illegally.
Gonzalez, meanwhile, advises anyone being detained or reporting to any legal matter to be accompanied by a trusted person.
