The Boston City Council approved two measures to support immigrant communities as Mayor Michelle Wu faced an onslaught of questions from a congressional committee on the city’s sanctuary policies in Washington.
The council on Wednesday threw its support behind legislation pending on Beacon Hill that would increase protections for illegal immigrants facing deportation and prohibit local officials from being “deputized” as immigration agents.
Councilors also denounced in a resolution the Trump administration’s rollback of temporary protected status for Haitian, Venezuelan and “other designated communities.”
The council’s actions came as Mayor Wu testified on sanctuary city policies during a hearing before the House Oversight Committee in Washington.
Councilors approved the resolutions after Council President Ruthzee Louijeune and Councilor Julia Mejia co-led a rally outside of City Hall to support Boston’s sanctuary city status.
Councilor Ben Weber introduced the resolution in support of the three immigration bills pending at the State House. The first would “prohibit law enforcement from inquiring about an individual’s immigration status without their consent.”
It doesn’t stop federal immigration officers from doing their jobs, he said.
“Just like the Boston Trust Act,” Weber said, “it supports our rights under the Tenth Amendment not to have our local resources commandeered by the federal government for draconian police actions.”
That elicited a response from resident Catherine Vitale in the audience. “Draconian police actions?” asked Vitale, who has run for a council seat in the past. Louijeune warned that only councilors can speak during meetings.
Boston is a sanctuary city under its Trust Act, a 2014 local law that bars city police and other departments from cooperating with federal authorities on civil immigration detainers.
The second piece of state legislation that Weber highlighted would combine private and public funds to create a fund to “provide immigration legal services to eligible immigrants and refugees who lack access to legal representation and are facing removal proceedings from the US,” according to the resolution order.
The third would “prohibit Massachusetts entities from voluntarily renting beds to ICE or donating time and resources to ICE by signing contracts that deputize local officials as ICE agents,” the order states.
Councilors Erin Murphy and Ed Flynn voted against the resolution, urging their colleagues to send the order to a committee hearing so they could learn more about each of the three bills.
Murphy said she would refile the resolution as a hearing order.
“A council meeting is not the time to discuss and ask questions, a hearing is the place,” she said. “My ‘no’ vote today on this is that I’m going to wait until I have all of the information that I need to make a sound and educated decision on this.”
Flynn said he did not want to be “disagreeable” and “disrespectful” to his colleagues as he also differed on the council’s process to approve the resolution. He acknowledged he supports “immigrants in search of a better life for themselves and their family.”
“If we did have a hearing,” Flynn said, “I would like to know from some of the department heads what impact this would have on housing … social services. … I just want to make sure that I am doing the best that I can on behalf of my constituents.”
Councilor Enrique Pepen disagreed with Murphy and Flynn’s approach, saying there’s a “far bigger message here that has to do not with law, not with what’s going to happen.”
“It’s about the message that we’re hearing from Washington, D.C., towards people who unfortunately cannot speak for themselves because of how much they are scared,” Pepen said.
Tension escalated when Councilor Liz Breadon, an immigrant from Northern Ireland, highlighted how an “undocumented” father of two teenage girls had been on his way to work as a journey carpenter when he was “picked up by ICE” and then “taken out of state.”
“He’s not a criminal,” Breadon said. “He’s just a hardworking father trying to support his family and make a better life. He came from one of the most violent countries in the world.”
Vitale interjected from the side, asking for Breadon’s thoughts on a father accused of raping his daughter at a state-run shelter. “You’re protecting rapists and murderers,” Vitale said.
Louijeune called for the meeting to enter a recess and for police to escort Vitale out of the chambers.
The council unanimously approved a resolution denouncing Trump’s rollback of temporary protected status for Haitian and Venezuelan immigrants who came to the country while President Joe Biden was in office.
Trump has already moved to end the protections for Venezuelans while the status is slated to be removed from Haitians in August.
“These are people who are fleeing unimaginable and unsafe conditions,” said Louijeune, the first Haitian American to be elected to the council. “It is illegal to dial back a status that has already been given to people, extensions that have already been given until next year.”
