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Boston Herald
Boston Herald
4 Mar 2025
Gayla Cawley


NextImg:‘Not my first rodeo’: Boston Mayor Wu confident heading into Congressional sanctuary cities hearing

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu expressed confidence heading into a Congressional oversight committee hearing on sanctuary city policies that she says has been portrayed as a “showdown” by the Republican-led House panel.

If a hype video released last week by the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is any indication of what’s to come, Wu may be in for a grilling when she appears at the Wednesday morning hearing in Washington, D.C.

“We have already seen some materials put out in advance that seems designed to try to heighten interest and frame it as some kind of showdown or dramatic moment,” Wu told reporters Monday.

“I am going to represent the city of Boston, the amazing people who live here, who work here, who are making our community wonderful,” the mayor said. “I’m there, no matter how challenging the circumstances, to stand up for Boston, and also to stand up for the truth, the facts of who we are.”

Wu was compelled to testify in D.C. alongside three other sanctuary city mayors from Chicago, Denver and New York City, via a letter sent to each mayor in late January by oversight committee Chair James Comer, a Kentucky Republican.

Comer’s letter stated that the committee was “investigating sanctuary jurisdictions across the United States and their impact on public safety and the effectiveness of federal efforts to enforce” the country’s “immigration laws.”

In a video accompanied by dramatic, horror-movie-style music released last week by the House committee, Comer elaborates on what Wu and the other three participating mayors can expect at this week’s hearing.

“We are going to bring the mayors in, we are going to let them explain what their policies are,” Comer said, “see if they can answer some questions as to who’s paying for this, who’s been in charge of this, what role their local government has played with the federal government involved.

“If they are going to continue to disobey the law, then I think we should cut as much of their federal funding as we can cut,” Comer added.

On Tuesday, Wu will join the Massachusetts Congressional delegation — including U.S. Reps. Stephen Lynch and Ayanna Pressley, Democrats who sit on the oversight committee — for a press conference in Washington, D.C.

The press conference will focus on the “impacts of the Trump administration’s harmful actions on communities across Massachusetts, ahead of the State of the Union Address,” according to advisories from members of the delegation.

Boston’s sanctuary status is enshrined in the Trust Act, a 2014 local law that prohibits city police and other departments from cooperating with federal authorities on civil immigration detainers.

MassGOP Chair Amy Carnevale met with Comer last Friday to discuss Mayor Wu’s upcoming testimony, Logan Trupiano, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Republican Party, said in a statement to the Herald.

Trupiano said Carnevale highlighted documents and “serious incident” reports from the state’s migrant-family shelter program that MassGOP obtained via a public records request earlier this year.

The Herald obtained the same incident reports, encompassing thousands of pages of reports from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, via its own records request and appeal.

The documents exposed incidents of child rape, domestic violence, brawls, drunkenness, drugs and more in the emergency housing shelter system, the Herald reported last January.

Trupiano said the reports Carnevale shared with Comer during their meeting provided “key information for the discussion.”

“With Mayor Wu shielded from scrutiny by her close ties to the Democratic supermajority in the Legislature and Boston City Council, we look forward to seeing her face tough questions for a change,” the MassGOP spokesman said.

Wu, in her remarks to reporters, indicated that she plans to defend the city’s public safety record at this week’s hearing. The mayor has touted Boston’s low homicide rate last year as proof that the Hub is the “safest major city” in the country.

“Some people are trying to paint the story of cities where immigrants live as being, quote, unquote, dangerous places, a threat to others, when in fact, we are proof of the opposite,” Wu said. “We are one of the most diverse cities.

“Twenty-eight percent of our residents were born in another country, and we are the safest major city in the country,” the mayor added.

A Bloomberg report that quoted S&P Global Ratings last month highlighted spending from the three other sanctuary cities taking part in the hearing, as it relates to the immigration crisis and asylum seekers.

Per the report, in fiscal year 2023, New York City spent $1.45 billion on migrant costs, and expects to spend a combined $9.1 billion housing migrants in FY24 and FY25. Chicago and Denver spent a respective $275 million and $46 million in FY2023, per Bloomberg.

Boston was not featured in the report and a Herald request for the city’s spending on the immigration crisis was not returned by Mayor Wu’s office. Wu had said last March that she expected the migrant crisis to impact the city’s budget, which she proposed a month later at $4.6 billion, but never got into specifics about actual numbers.

Wu, who has tangled with President Trump’s border czar Tom Homan for months about Boston’s limited cooperation with federal law enforcement and called the oversight committee’s hype video “amusing” last week, appears primed for a fight heading into Wednesday’s hearing.

“Not my first rodeo,” Wu said about the potential for facing “hostile” questioning.

Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)