By George Lehman
Boston University News Service
Boston is joining a coalition of mayors from across the nation in an effort to halt the deployment of federal immigration agents in Minnesota after the state filed a lawsuit against federal immigration officials and agencies earlier this month.
Mayor Michelle Wu and the City of Boston joined a coalition of 44 mayors, cities and counties that filed an amicus brief on Thursday in support of a lawsuit filed by Minnesota and Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul that aims to block federal immigration enforcement agents from being deployed in the state and Twin Cities.
“These politically-motivated invasions of cities, whether by ICE agents or the National Guard, endanger our residents and violate federal law,” Wu said in a statement. “We are urging the courts to curb the dangerous impulses of a reckless federal administration.”
The brief claims the enforcement effort in Minnesota and the Twin Cities, referred to as “Operation Metro Surge,” is in violation of the Tenth Amendment and “has led to a military occupation of the Twin Cities.”
It also argues that ICE is “not in the Twin Cities because of an urgent need for significantly enhanced and aggressive immigration enforcement,” but rather because the federal administration “does not agree with Minnesota’s state and local policies.”
“Instead of deploying DHS agents to conduct targeted immigration enforcement consistent with legal restrictions—which neither Plaintiffs nor amici question is within the administration’s authority—President Trump and DHS have, instead, recklessly deployed ICE to the Twin Cities to cause chaos as punishment for state and local policy choices,” the brief reads.
Wu’s alliance with Minnesota and the Twin Cities is one of many times that Boston has pushed back against the Trump administration’s policies towards sanctuary jurisdictions this past year.
The U.S. Department of Justice sent letters to Wu and 31 other mayors and governors of sanctuary jurisdictions across the country back in June, including a letter sent to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, claiming those jurisdictions which interfere with federal immigration laws submit a plan of compliance by Aug. 19.
In September, the DOJ sued the city of Boston along with Mayor Michelle Wu and Police Commissioner Michael Cox, claiming the city’s sanctuary policies “obstruct” the federal government from enforcing its immigration laws.
The lawsuit alleged the Boston Trust Act, which prohibits Boston police from working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for detainment requests on the basis of immigration status unless ICE has a criminal warrant, violates the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.
In a statement to Boston University News Service, Wu said the lawsuit was an “unconstitutional attack” and that Boston would defend “the constitutional rights of cities, which have been repeatedly upheld in courts across the country.”
Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell filed a brief in support of Boston’s Trust Act in November after Boston moved to dismiss the DOJ’s lawsuit against the city’s sanctuary policy earlier that month. She argued that Massachusetts has a “sovereign state interest” in determining whether local law enforcement assists in federal immigration enforcement, which includes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The lawsuit filed by Minnesota and the Twin Cities argues the Tenth Amendment “gives the State of Minnesota and its subdivisions, including the Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, inviolable sovereign authority” and expects that “law enforcement, whether federal, state, or local, will follow the law” and “conduct itself in a manner that distinguishes officers from masked criminals.”
