(The Center Square) – Noncitizens in Massachusetts with prior arrests face escalating deportations under the Trump administration’s Operation Patriot 2.0.
Modeled after its first round of mass roundups earlier this summer – particularly in sanctuary cities like Boston, New York and Los Angeles – Border Czar Tom Homan doubled down on his efforts to reduce migrant populations in blue states.
Homan said during an address for the State Freedom Caucus Foundation, that 70% of ICE arrests have been of migrants with violent criminal histories, while the rest are national security threats, and to a smaller degree, people who have broken immigration laws without any other crimes committed – technically.
“Where do we arrest most noncriminal nontargets? In sanctuary cities,” Homan told the crowd. “And why is that? Because they won’t give us the bad guy in the jail. They release them back into the community, which means now we have to go the community and find that person.
“And when we find them, many times they are with others. Others in the country illegally but are not a criminal target, but guess what? They’re coming too.”
Last month, Boston’s liberal immigration policy landed it on the federal government’s updated list of sanctuary jurisdictions.
The designation means the state “impedes enforcement of federal immigration laws.” It’s the only Massachusetts jurisdiction cited by the Department of Justice.
However, according to the Center for Immigration Studies, the Bay State is one of a dozen sanctuary states, alongside five of its Northeast neighbors: New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Vermont.
The release says the executive order of second-term Republican President Donald Trump – Protecting American Communities from Criminal Aliens – requires the publishing of the list of state and local jurisdictions that obstruct enforcement of federal immigration law.
The same day Boston made the list, ICE announced the arrest of Manuel Umana Solorzano, an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador, for possession of child pornography, indecent assault of a minor under 14, statutory rape of a child, among other charges.
He was apprehended in Milford, about 40 miles southwest of Boston.
Homan over the weekend pointed to the broader trend, noting the “contradiction,” he said.
“So sanctuary cities,” he said, “you think they are hurting us? Sanctuary cities are cities for criminals, first of all. All we want is access to the jail, where you lock people up in a jail cell. You locked them up, apparently as a public safety threat, in a jail cell. He’s in the country illegally, let us have them when you’re done with them.”