Boston asks judge to throw out feds’ lawsuit over immigration policy
Lawyers for the city of Boston are asking a judge to throw out a lawsuit from the federal government that attempts to force local police to cooperate with immigration enforcement efforts .
In a motion to dismiss the case filed Monday, city attorneys wrote that the Trust Act , which limits the Boston Police Department's ability to work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on non-criminal matters, was both permissible under federal law and an important way to protect residents.
"Boston is safer when residents, regardless of immigration status, know they can call the Boston Police Department to report crime, participate in the economy, and utilize City services — basic functions of civic life that promote the prosperity and stability on which public safety relies," they wrote. "Boston has built this trust through decades of community policing and cooperative work with local leaders. The Trust Act protects that success."
President Donald Trump's administration filed the lawsuit in September, saying the Trust Act undermined law enforcement and public safety.
On Aug. 5, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi published a list of "sanctuary jurisdictions," places where local regulations limit police cooperation with ICE, that included the city of Boston and "vowed to bring litigation to end these policies nationwide." The federal justice department filed a similar suit against New York City in July.
The September lawsuit was not the first time the federal government had attacked the Trust Act since Trump took office in January. In March, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu was called to testify before Congress to defend it alongside the leaders of other so-called "sanctuary cities."
As Wu said during her Congressional hearing, attorneys emphasized in their motion this week that the Trust Act still allows police to work with ICE on criminal investigations such as in drug or human trafficking cases. While the federal government had argued in its lawsuit that the law violates the federal Immigration and Naturalization Act, city attorneys disagreed, saying that law only permits cooperation, but doesn't require it.
Any requirement to work with federal immigration enforcement, they wrote, would be a violation of Boston's rights under the 10th Amendment, which gives state governments large powers of self-governance.
"Municipalities retain the authority not to participate in immigration enforcement," they wrote. "Boston has declined the INA's invitation, and the Tenth Amendment protects the City's authority to do so."
A Boston Globe/Suffolk University poll from July found that, by and large, Bostonians support the Trust Act's limitations on Boston Police's cooperation with ICE. The Trust Act is also in line with a 2017 ruling by Massachusetts' highest court that found that, under state law, local officials cannot detain a person based on civil immigration law violations alone.
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