by David Lindfield
Boston’s radical Democrat Mayor Michelle Wu is moving to identify private property owners who may be willing to lease parking spaces to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as the sanctuary-city leader continues trying to obstruct the federal agency’s operations.
ICE recently announced that it is seeking private property owners nationwide who can provide parking near existing or planned facilities.
In Boston, the agency is looking for 249 contiguous parking spaces, according to the Boston Herald.
Wu said Sunday that her administration plans to file public records requests to determine which private property owners have expressed interest in working with ICE.
Wu Says City Will Contact Property Owners
“We as a city will be filing another FOIA request for any responses that have come in from the Boston area so that we know what information they may be sifting through,” Wu said.
“We strongly oppose any expansion of their efforts here and would encourage and will be reaching out to property owners to try to make sure that they’re not adding to a surge of unlawful and dangerous activity.”
Wu acknowledged that Boston does not have the legal authority to stop private owners from leasing their property to federal immigration authorities.
“We can’t block private property [owners],” she said.
But she added that the city intends to contact those owners and tell them that cooperating with ICE “is not a way to make our community safer.”
“We look to find as much information as possible about what their plans are, what information they might be looking at in order to have the best possible response and protect our communities,” Wu said.
Wu Blasts ICE Enforcement
The mayor pointed to recent ICE operations, including one in Maine that ended with an officer fatally shooting a migrant, as justification for her effort to push back against the agency.
“Unfortunately, we already have proof of what happens when they conduct a surge operation,” Wu said.
“We’ve seen it in other cities, we’ve seen it to some extent in the greater Boston-Massachusetts Commonwealth area.”