Boston Mayor Launches Intimidation Campaign Against Property Owners Who Aid Federal Law Enforcement

Clear Facts

• Boston Mayor Michelle Wu issued an open letter warning property owners against leasing parking spaces to ICE, while simultaneously filing a FOIA request to identify businesses responding to the federal agency
• The Department of Homeland Security accused Wu of “hunting down” private property owners and threatening them for cooperating with federal immigration enforcement
• Wu previously banned ICE vehicles from city-owned parking lots, prompting the federal agency to seek 249 private parking spaces in Boston for a five-year lease

The Department of Homeland Security has publicly condemned Boston Democratic Mayor Michelle Wu for what it calls an “unhinged” campaign to prevent private business owners from leasing property to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The confrontation escalated after Wu banned ICE vehicles from using city-owned parking facilities to stage enforcement operations. In response, ICE issued a public notice seeking to rent hundreds of parking spaces from private owners in the city for five years.

Wu, a vocal opponent of President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement priorities, responded by issuing an official letter to parking garage and lot owners throughout Boston. In the letter, she revealed the city had submitted a Freedom of Information Act request “for any local responses to ICE.”

The Department of Homeland Security responded forcefully on social media, stating:

“These actions by sanctuary Mayor Michelle Wu are unhinged. She knows she has NO authority to block us from using private property. So, she’s hunting down private property owners and threatening them for working with ICE — because she’d rather intimidate law-abiding Bostonians than get criminal illegal aliens OFF the street.”

ICE’s “sources sought” notice, issued last month, requested 249 contiguous parking spaces in Boston as part of a nationwide effort covering 14 cities. The parking spaces would support what the agency calls “surge parking” operations.

In her appeal to garage and lot owners, Wu urged them to “reject ICE staging facilities,” claiming that if ICE obtained such resources, “it would constitute an unprovoked and unwarranted escalation, creating potentially significant risks to public safety and halting economic activity across our entire region.”

Wu highlighted her coordination with six other cities in Greater Boston that signed executive orders prohibiting ICE from staging operations on municipal property. She then directly appealed to private property owners:

“Today, I ask you to join us: Reject any proposition by ICE to facilitate an attack on the people of Boston.”

The mayor also informed property owners that the city had submitted a FOIA request for any local responses to ICE, promising to “keep you updated as we push for a response” and thanking them “for your partnership.”

The FOIA request, submitted to ICE and reviewed by news outlets, seeks “all submissions and/or responses to ICE Sources Sought Notice with Notice ID ‘DHS-ICE-SurgeParking.'”

DHS issued another statement calling Wu a “pro-criminal illegal alien politician,” noting that her FOIA request “admits she has no authority to block ICE from utilizing private property.”

The agency added:

“If private citizens want to allow federal law enforcement onto their own property, they should be allowed to do so—free of threats, intimidation and coercion from their radical left-wing mayor who shamelessly compared ICE agents to a neo-Nazi group.”

Wu’s FOIA request followed an “emergency resolution” adopted by the Boston City Council earlier this month. The resolution urged the city to “explore all avenues to oppose” proposed parking leases for ICE in downtown Boston.

By adopting the emergency resolution, the council called on the city to “explore available options to prevent the proposed parking leases and expressed its opposition to an increased ICE presence in the city.”

Beyond Boston, ICE’s notice indicates the agency is seeking significant numbers of parking spaces in metropolitan areas including Denver, Seattle, Philadelphia, Dallas, Phoenix, Pittsburgh and several other cities nationwide.

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