The House Judiciary Committee has released an election eve report on the “consequences of sanctuary policies” in the City of Boston as well as Massachusetts as Mayor Michelle Wu, Gov. Maura Healey and the supermajority Democratic state legislature continue to implement laws to counter President Trump’s nationwide crackdown on illegal immigration.

“Democrats’ open-borders policies and sanctuary jurisdictions have had devastating consequences for U.S. citizens. Even after the American people resoundingly rejected Democrats’ pro-illegal alien policies in November 2024, Democrats across the country reinforced sanctuary policies to ensure that the millions of illegal aliens who entered the U.S. are never removed from the country,” the committee said. “Boston is just one example of Democrats’ efforts to erase national borders and undermine immigration enforcement.”

Boston’s sanctuary policies

The report finds that Boston’s sanctuary policies allow dangerous illegal immigrants with violent criminal histories to be released back into the city, adding that Boston Police have ignored every single ICE detainer request in 2026 as that tally now reaches 54. This after Herald reported the city had ignored 167 detainer requests from ICE in 2025 after stating they had ignored only 57 requests.

Furthermore, the committee says Boston Police have not transferred a single foreign national criminal into ICE custody based off an ICE detainer since 2021.

“This interim staff report focuses on Boston, which has obstructed federal law enforcement with its sanctuary policies for years. Nonpublic documents and data obtained by the Committee and Subcommittee reveal the startling extent to which the city of Boston actively obstructs the enforcement of federal immigration law and shields foreign national criminals from accountability,” an executive summary of the report reads.

Data collected by the committee shows that in the first 10 months of 2026, law enforcement in Boston encountered illegal immigrants from Colombia, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Mexico, Ecuador, China, Morocco, and Venezuela, many of which with prior criminal convictions.

The report discusses the Trust Act, signed into law by former Mayor Marty Walsh and the Boston City Council in 2014, which prohibits local police from working with ICE on civil immigration enforcement. It highlighted a survey of Boston residents released in October by the Downtown Boston Neighborhood Association that found a 22% increase in residents who feel unsafe downtown and on Boston Common, showing a jump from 34% in 2025 to 56% in 2026.

The committee also criticized Mayor Wu for comparing ICE agents to “neo-Nazis” in 2025 and continuing to openly defend the city’s sanctuary policies.

“Last year, Mayor Wu baselessly compared ICE agents to neo-Nazis. The Department of Homeland Security has reported that ICE officials face a more than 1,600 percent increase in assaults against them during the course of their duties. This dangerous rhetoric and Boston’s sanctuary policies intentionally prevent ICE from performing its lawful immigration enforcement duties in the city of Boston, which ultimately exposes Boston to more crime and lawlessness,” the committee said.

Massachusetts sanctuary policies

The report also shined a light on Massachusetts sanctuary policies, the recently signed Protect Act in particular, that prevent local and state law enforcement from cooperating with ICE in virtually any capacity. It pointed to several criminal illegal immigrants that have been kept from ICE by Boston and Massachusetts policies, including one man from Brazil with pending charges for negligent homicide and two others charged with sex crimes.

“Because of Massachusetts’s sanctuary policies, dangerous and violent offenders—including child abusers, armed robbers, and drug traffickers—have been bailed out and released back into Massachusetts society, free to reoffend with little to no consequences. Criminal aliens know that they can operate with impunity in Massachusetts,” the committee wrote, going to mention the years-long illegal immigrant marriage fraud ring uncovered by U.S. Attorney Leah Foley’s office last month in which the ringleader advertised her business by selling Massachusetts as a “sanctuary” for illegal immigrants to commit fraud.

Just last week, Republican candidate for governor Mike Minogue joined 12 of the 14 Massachusetts sheriffs in calling on Gov. Healey to address several public safety concerns with the recently signed Protect Act.

Biden administration’s role

While the report highlights Boston and statewide sanctuary policies, it also focused on the Biden administration’s national role in the immigration crisis, pointing to a transcribed interview in 2023 it conducted with two former high-ranking ICE officials in Biden’s White House who testified on the dangers caused by sanctuary jurisdictions’ refusal to honor ICE detainers and how it “poses a public safety threat being released into the community,” and “potentially undermines national security.”

“I mean, anyone being released back into the community that is, you know, a criminal or has the violent crimes or heinous crimes obviously poses a public safety threat being released into the community,” one of the high-ranking Biden officials told the committee.

Police and court activity in Massachusetts is also shaped by a ruling that found that the state’s courts don’t have the authority to “arrest and hold an individual solely on the basis of a Federal civil immigration detainer, beyond the time that the individual would otherwise be entitled to be released from State custody,” according to a ruling, known as the Lunn decision, by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

The SJC made that ruling in July 2017, when Gov. Healey served as attorney general. It marked the first statewide decision in the nation on whether local law enforcement can “detain someone at the request of federal immigration authorities.”

President Trump’s response

The committee praised President Trump’s efforts to curb the effect sanctuary polices have on nationwide immigration enforcement, including his signing of a 2025 executive order ordering the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to “evaluate and undertake any lawful actions to ensure that so-called ‘sanctuary’ jurisdictions, which seek to interfere with the lawful exercise of Federal law enforcement operations, do not receive access to Federal funds.”

In April 2025, Trump signed another executive order directing Attorney General Todd Blanche to publish a list of States and local jurisdictions that obstruct federal immigration enforcement and to pursue legal remedies to end these violations and bring jurisdictions into compliance.

The Justice Department has identified Massachusetts and Boston as being among 11 states, three counties, and 18 cities they classify as sanctuary jurisdictions.

The Herald has requested comment from Gov. Healey and Mayor Wu.

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