Mass. Gov. Maura Healey blasts ICE for lack of info about Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket arrests

Chris Van Buskirk, Boston Herald on May 28, 2025

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BOSTON — Gov. Maura Healey slammed officials at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Wednesday after the agency helped arrest around 40 people on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket who are accused of living in the United States illegally.

Federal immigration officials did not release the names of the people taken into custody Tuesday but said the group included a “documented gang member” and “at least one child sex offender.” Healey said local law enforcement had “zero information” about the federal actions.

“Local police chiefs have zero information about what’s happening in their communities. We at the state level have zero information about what’s happening in communities. And that needs to change. We need to get answers. We need to get clarification from ICE. And it was very disturbing, needless to say, to wake up to that news about that activity on Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket,” she said.

Patricia Hyde, the ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Boston acting field office director, said officials with the agency worked with the FBI, Drug Enforcement Agency, and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to “arrest a significant number of illegal alien offenders.”

Hyde accused one of the people arrested of being a child sex offender and another of being a “documented member of the notorious MS-13 street gang.”

“ICE and our federal partners made a strong stand for prioritizing public safety by arresting and removing illegal aliens from our New England neighborhoods,” Hyde said in a statement.

But Healey said the arrests raised “real questions” about whether or not ICE and other federal officials are complying with due process in Massachusetts and other states.

“It’s one thing to go after and target those who have committed crimes, who are here unlawfully,” Healey told reporters at the State House. “It’s concerning when we see people, moms and dads, being ripped away from families. Neighbors, coworkers taken away, literally it looks like, on the way to job sites in Nantucket and on the Vineyard.”

Brian Shortsleeve, a Republican candidate for governor, said Healey is “pouting that she was kept out of the loop” after years of turning Massachusetts into a “migrant magnet and refusing cooperation with federal law enforcement to remove criminal illegal aliens.”

Instead, "she should be apologizing for allowing criminals and gang members who shouldn’t even be in our country, walk freely on our streets while spending billions in taxpayer dollars to accommodate them,” Shortsleeve said in a statement.

Mike Kennealy, another Republican candidate for governor, said Healey’s “sanctuary policies” attracted “illegal immigrants” to Massachusetts.

“According to ICE, one of the individuals involved is allegedly a child predator, and another is a documented member of MS-13 — and there should be zero tolerance for that kind of threat in our state. We should be supporting, not vilifying, federal agents who work to keep dangerous criminals off our streets,” Kennealy said in a statement to the Herald.

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