Criminals from around the world are hiding in Massachusetts. This alarming and growing trend is a concern for federal immigration officials.
U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) agents are trying to go after those threatening public safety, but their job is tougher than ever.
“We have a limited number of resources… there is only so many officers, so many hours in the day that we’ve always had to prioritize who it is that we target for arrests and we always try to target those egregious public safety threats,” explained David Wesling, the deputy director of ICE’s Boston Field Office.
7 Investigates rode along on February 21 when agents targeted a Mexican citizen. The man entered the United States in 2018. He was convicted for assault and battery and was charged with operating a vehicle under the influence three times.
Multiple ICE agents planned ahead to arrest the individual during a traffic stop on his way to a court appearance in Waltham.
At just after 8 a.m., federal cars block downtown Waltham and sirens blare as agents successfully take the man into custody. The arrest took only minutes, but it is time that Wesling said didn’t need to be spent at all.
“He was released by the court…the detainer wasn’t honored so now we have to go out here and locate this individual,” Wesling explained.
Detainers act as notifications to local and state jurisdictions. They request that ICE agents be allowed to take individuals into custody from courts and other local and state agencies.
“This isn’t just for someone solely being in the country illegally,” Lyons explained. “This is for those individuals who have been arrested for something significant.”
It’s the immigrants who have committed significant crimes that ICE agents are arresting.
But in recent years, ICE officials said these detainers have not been honored by local jurisdictions.
“Right now with a lot of the sanctuary designations and communities, we just don’t see the cooperation that we used to see in the past,” explained Todd Lyons, the director of ICE’s Boston Field Office.
Massachusetts has eight sanctuary cities, including Boston. The designation limits local cooperation with federal immigration laws.
“It basically means the federal government, they have plenty of resources to go out and arrest people and they are welcome to use those resources but the state is not going to be in a position where they are going to use their resources for that,” explained immigration attorney Jeannie Kain.
Kain explained some jurisdictions have made these decisions for public safety reasons as they believe it could impact people’s willingness to cooperate with local law enforcement.
Lyons said around zero of their detainers in Massachusetts have been honored recently and this has a consequence.
“These people get released back in the street, which puts my officers in danger because I have to go back out and find them, rearrest them. It also gives these offenders the opportunity to go ahead and reoffend,” Lyons explained.
That’s what happened in the case of the Mexican citizen they arrested on February 21. The court did not honor the detainer and let him go after convicting him of assault and battery. After his release, he was arrested for another OUI charge.
ICE has called out the courts this year for ignoring their detainers and releasing an individual charged with rape and indecent assault on a disabled person, a man with multiple gun charges and a person who was charged with molesting a child.
The Boston Field Office covers six New England States. The office issued more than 2,100 detainers in 2023; a third were for convicted criminals and half were for people with pending charges.
Lyons said the lack of cooperation from other entities also means his office isn’t always able to dedicate its limited resources to the targets they want to prioritize; foreign fugitives.
He said Massachusetts has the highest number of foreign fugitives in the country and Lyons said that number is increasing.
Already this year, ICE agents out of the Boston Field Office have arrested Brazilian child rapists, a MS-13 gang member wanted for murder, a Honduran gang member facing drug distribution charges, and a Romanian convicted murderer; all escaping prison time in their own countries by hiding in the U.S
“I think a lot of the problem is you do have jurisdictions where someone can go and commit these crimes and not have to face repercussions. And I think a lot of individuals take advantage of that,” Lyons said.
Agents with the Boston ICE office arrested 35 foreign fugitives last year. These arrests made up 3% of the local arrests.
Beyond foreign fugitives, Lyons said their number of criminal targets is increasing.
“2023 was a really, really busy year and we’ve already started surpassing our numbers just in the first two months of this year,” Lyons said.
The office removed 600 people and detained 1,400 individuals last year; all were either convicted or charged with crimes.
Kain serves as a liaison to Lyon’s office for the American Immigration Lawyers Association. She said she’s found that ICE is doing their job and she thinks the current policy of making high-level criminals targets is a good approach.
“The vast vast majority of migrants have nothing to do with crime. They are coming here to escape violence, they are coming here to support their families. They are not looking to commit crimes and they are not fugitives,” Kain said.
She said she does not see a connection between the crime and criminals that ICE is targeting and the increase in migrants to New England. This is a distinction Kain thinks is important for people to remember.
“A lot of times immigrants are portrayed as criminals and rule breakers and I think the reality is different. I think immigrants should be portrayed as people who are contributing to our economy, who are taking jobs we need to fill and who are really benefiting our community in many ways,” she said.
Lyons agreed and that is why he wishes more communities would assist them in safely taking the few who do commit extreme crimes off the streets.
“We’re not actually focused on the people who are trying to make it their life for themselves,” Lyons said. “It doesn’t matter what administration is, what side of the aisle you’re on. At the end of the day, it’s all about public safety. And that’s what we really try to focus on.”
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