Federal immigration and other law enforcement agents arrested almost 400 illegal-alien criminals in Boston in raids that ended yesterday.
The arrests fulfill border czar Tom Homan’s promise to target Boston, an illegal-alien sanctuary in violation of the federal law on harboring illegals.
The arrests follow Mayor Michelle Wu’s vow, during her State of the City speech last week, to continue breaking that law.
Pursuing the story about the city’s illegal-alien crime, WBZ, the local CBS affiliate, found that Homan was right when he said that city authorities, in refusing to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), had released child rapists to prey upon the public.
The arrests and that story suggest that Wu might reconsider her mulish insistence on not helping ICE, which not only violates the harboring statute, but also endangers Bostonians.
The Arrests
ICE, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives joined to arrest 370 illegals. The criminals are either linked to gangs and transnational organized crime, or are “egregious illegal-alien offenders.”
The gangs include the Salvadoran MS-13, the Dominican Trinitarios, the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua, and the Mexican-Central American 18th Street, ICE reported:
205 of those arrested had significant criminal convictions or charges. Six were foreign fugitives currently facing charges or convictions for murder, drug trafficking, organized crime, and money laundering.” …
Law enforcement officials seized approximately 44 kilograms of methamphetamines, 5 kilograms of fentanyl, 1.2 kilograms of cocaine, three firearms and ammunition from illegal alien offenders during the operation.
Those arrested included:
- Five Brazilians, including a murder suspect in his home country; another wanted for homicide; another charged with vehicular homicide while driving drunk, a fourth wanted in Brazil for drug trafficking, money laundering, and membership in organized crime; and a fifth wanted back home for failing to serve a homicide sentence;
- Three Dominicans, including a murder suspect in his home country and two others, both previously deported, involved with drugs;
- A Guatemalan rape suspect, released after a court ignored a detainer;
- A Salvadoran 18th Street gang member with an assault conviction;
- A Russian organized crime suspect wanted back home;
- A previously deported Honduran child rapist;
- A previously-deported Jamaican drug dealer; and,
- A Chilean child molester.
Homan’s Promise
Mayor Wu won’t admit it, but “the Commonwealth is a safer place for our residents to live and work because ICE and our federal law enforcement partners arrested hundreds of alien offenders and removed them from the streets of Massachusetts,” said Boston ICE chieftain Patricia H. Hyde. “Throughout this enhanced enforcement operation, we targeted the most dangerous alien offenders in some of the most crime-infested neighborhoods in and around Boston.”
“I’m coming to Boston, I’m bringing hell with me,” Homan said at last month’s CPAC convention.
On X, Homan observed that he kept that promise:
“I made a promise at CPAC that I was going to Boston after reading about numerous illegal alien child rapists walking the streets of Boston and Massachusetts,” he wrote:
ICE had to find and arrest these illegal alien rapists because Massachusetts and Boston are sanctuaries that refuse to cooperate with ICE. They would rather release these animals back into the community rather than honor ICE detainers or notify ICE when they are scheduled to be released. Mayor Wu later testified that I was lying. Well, I traveled to Boston last Tuesday, as promised, and we kicked off a five day operation with ICE, FBI, ATF, DEA, US Marshals and [the Diplomatic Security Service]. …
These officers and agents made the neighborhoods of Boston and Massachusetts much safer. They risked their own safety by arresting these criminals on the street, rather than a jail. Governor [Maura Healey] and Mayor Wu should be ashamed of supporting sanctuary policies.
WBZ Report
CBS Boston found that Homan wasn’t lying, as Wu contended.
“Tom Homan said he specifically counted ‘9 child rapists that were in jail in Massachusetts,’ that were released into the community before they were arrested by ICE,” the station reported.
Here are just a few:
- Jose Fernando-Perez, released in 2022 after posting $7,500 bond, arrested by ICE in February;
- Stivenson Omar Perez-Ajtzalan, child rapist, release on $7,500 bail, arrested by ICE in January; and,
- Juan Alberto Rodezno-Marin, released on personal recognizance in December 2024, arrested by ICE in January.
Last week, in her State of the City address, Wu vowed to help those illegal-alien criminals stay in Boston. Indeed, she said, “you belong here.”
“No one tells Boston how to take care of our own,” the mulish mayor said:
Not kings, and not presidents who think they are kings. Boston was born facing down bullies. In D.C., during the breaks to nurse the baby, I caught up on the scene unfolding back home: Hands joined in prayer across an interfaith circle at St. Paul’s; bright letters illuminated on the Old State House bricks; homemade signs held high among the crowds on City Hall Plaza: “We stand with immigrants,” “You belong here,” “Somos una ciudad de inmigrantes,” “Boston doesn’t back down.”
The Bostonians Against Mayor Wu X feed begs to differ.
“Massachusetts would rather release illegal aliens with ‘significant criminal convictions or charges; instead of simply working with the Trump administration,” the group wrote over a release from the state GOP about the 205 criminals now in ICE custody. “I wonder if @MayorWu will give condolences to all those who were arrested.”
When Homan will begin arresting mayors and city officials for harboring is unclear, but he has warned them repeatedly that trespassing 8 U.S. Code 1324 will subject them to prosecution. U.S. Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove has said the same thing, and the Justice Department has already sued several cities because of their unlawful sanctuary policies.
