As Mayor Michelle Wu prepares to go to Congress to defend Boston’s protections of immigrant communities, the city is in a war of words with the Trump administration and Republican representatives over how much police should support deportations. President Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan teed off against Boston’s police commissioner in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference, saying there are at least nine accused “child rapists” in jail who local authorities won’t turn over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He promised to come to Boston and “bring hell with him.” ICE public affairs didn’t respond to a request for information about these cases, and Homan didn’t elaborate on any travel plans. Boston isn’t alone: ICE has accused state and local authorities around the country of failing to cooperate to get people charged with violent crimes deported. At Wednesday’s hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Wu will be joined by the mayors of Chicago, New York and Denver, all caught in the crosshairs of what it means to be a “sanctuary city.” A clash between federal, state and local laws ICE is empowered to enforce immigration laws nationwide but needs help from state and local authorities to achieve deportations on a large scale. It asks police and sheriffs to alert them to certain people it wants to deport and to hold them for up to 48 hours so that immigration officers have time to arrive and take custody. Sanctuary cities limit such cooperation when it involves people accused but not yet convicted of crimes, following state or local laws that prohibit turning people over to ICE merely for lacking legal permission to be in the country. “If someone’s committed a serious offense, our position is that we want to hold them accountable,” Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden said. “What you want to do with their immigration consequences or deportation, if any, after we hold them accountable, that’s up to the federal government. That’s up to ICE.” Handing over defendants would make it harder to gain cooperation from immigrants when investigating crimes, and fail to deliver justice for the victims, Hayden argued. Will deporting defendants and witnesses make cities safer? “We don’t want people’s fear of immigration consequences of a deportation to have a chilling effect on our ability to hold people accountable,” Hayden said. “Even in this modern day, where we have phones and cameras and recordings and everything, we still need victims and witnesses and people to come in and testify and tell their story in order to prove a case.” Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox told WCVB-TV that police don’t have authority to enforce federal immigration laws or hand over people just because they’re in the country illegally — their immigration status isn’t “relevant to public safety,” he said. The Boston Trust Act, updated in 2018, allows police to cooperate with ICE on “significant public safety, such as human trafficking, child exploitation, drug and weapons trafficking, and cybercrimes, while refraining from involvement in civil immigration enforcement.” The city also must follow a 2017 ruling by the state’s highest court, which forbids Massachusetts authorities from holding a person otherwise entitled to release from custody based solely on a federal request. How have leaders responded to the pressure? Wu, a Democrat up for reelection this year, […]