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‘Border czar’ says BPD commissioner is ignoring his duty. But what does the law require?
Despite claims from federal officials, Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox does not have much say in how he responds to detainer requests from ICE.
President Donald Trump and officials in his administration are making a habit of picking fights with so-called sanctuary cities, where laws limit cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities.
Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan appears increasingly fixated on Boston. Over the weekend, he accused Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox of a dereliction of duty while vowing he was “bringing hell” with him to the city.
Speaking to a friendly crowd at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland, Homan said he read a news article about Cox “doubling down” on not helping the enforcement operations of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
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Homan then used statewide data to further attack Cox, who only oversees law enforcement in Boston. Homan said he looked at data that showed “nine child rapists” that were jailed in Massachusetts but released because police did not honor ICE detainer requests. This, according to Homan, is evidence that Cox is ignoring his duties.
“You’re not a police commissioner. Take that badge off your chest, put it in the desk drawer because you became a politician, you forgot what it was like to be a cop,” Homan said.
Homan appeared to be referring to an appearance Cox made on WCVB’s “On the Record” earlier this month. During that interview, Cox spoke about how the BPD does not have the authority to enforce federal immigration law. The department does not ask people about their immigration status, he said. Instead, BPD is focused on determining who is a “victim” of a crime and who is a “victimizer.”
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He stressed that ICE detainer requests are not the same thing as criminal warrants, and that BPD “absolutely” enforces criminal warrants of any kind.
“These are civil detainers. What people don’t understand is that there’s a difference between criminal warrants and civil detainers,” Cox said.
The BPD did not return a request for comment Monday regarding Homan’s remarks. But Mayor Michelle Wu defended Cox and Boston’s policies in a BlueSky post Sunday.
This is our city. We’re going to continue following & enforcing the laws to keep all Bostonians safe. And it goes without saying that our police commissioner has my complete confidence & support.
— Michelle Wu 吳弭 (@wutrain.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 5:45 PM
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Wu, who had a testy public exchange with Homan in the fall over immigration policies, told NBC10 Boston that Homan’s recent statements about Cox were “insulting.”
“We have the best police commissioner in the country,” she told the station. “We are intent on delivering city services to every single person, regardless of immigration status, to have that access available.”
Wu is planning to travel to Washington, D.C. next month to testify before Congress about Boston’s sanctuary policies, where she will undoubtedly be in a position to defend Cox again on a national stage.
‘More bullying and intimidation’
While Homan framed the situation as Cox choosing to let violent offenders walk the streets, he and other police leaders in Massachusetts do not have much of an ability to honor ICE detainer requests even if they wanted to.
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“It’s not Cox’s decision to make,” Laura Rotolo, field director for the ACLU of Massachusetts, told Boston.com.
In 2017, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that state and local officials cannot detain a person based solely on an ICE detainer request.
These detainers are regularly lodged with local law enforcement when ICE becomes aware that a person who was arrested could be subject to deportation. They commonly contain two requests: that local police delay the immigrant’s release by up to 48 hours to allow federal agents to transfer them into ICE custody, and that local police notify ICE before the person is set to be released.
A detainer request is not mandatory and is not the same thing as a judicial warrant. Most detainers are not supported by probable cause, according to the ACLU, and local authorities who hold a person on an unconstitutional detainer can be liable.
At the end of 2024, Cox reported that the BPD received 15 detainer requests from ICE, while the federal agency said it actually lodged 198 with the department, all of which were not acted on. Police officials blamed the discrepancy on the fact that ICE was sending the requests entirely via fax machine, despite having been asked by the BPD two years ago to send them using a specific email address. ICE did not use that email address once in 2023 or 2024, a BPD spokesperson said.
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It’s not clear which specific cases Homan was referring to in his recent comments. ICE Boston regularly publicizes instances where they detain an undocumented immigrant charged with a serious crime, like rape. The agency makes sure to note when detainer requests have been “honored” or not, and whether ICE agents had to go out in the field and re-arrest the people in question. But ICE sometimes uses “misleading language” around the topic, Rotolo said.
The people in question could have been released for a number of reasons based on factors like the arrest itself, the charges, or whether a prosecutor asked for them to be held. The ACLU is not aware of any cities or towns in Massachusetts that are holding people explicitly on behalf of ICE, Rotolo said.
“We have a criminal legal system whereby bail clerks and courts and judges make decisions as to whether a person should be let out on bail or on their own recognizance based on their own dangerousness, prior history, et cetera,” she said.
In Boston specifically, Cox must operate under the Boston Trust Act. This ordinance directs the BPD to only coordinate with ICE on issues of significant public safety importance, like cases of child exploitation and human trafficking. It was initially enacted in 2014, amended in 2019, and unanimously reaffirmed by Boston City Council last December. Proponents, including Wu, argue that it increases public safety by allowing immigrants to report crimes they witness without fear of deportation.
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How Homan intends to “bring hell” to Boston has also not been clarified. Under the 10th Amendment to the Constitution and subsequent jurisprudence, the federal government cannot “commandeer” local or state resources to help with immigration enforcement. Local officials cannot impede federal authorities, but they are under no obligation to provide their own resources to help.
Trump has issued executive orders that threaten to cut off federal funding from sanctuary cities, and there is pending legislation that would do the same. Somerville and Chelsea sued the federal government this week over the executive orders.
“This is just more bullying and intimidation from the federal government,” Rotolo said of Homan’s comments. “But the law is clear that it’s just unconstitutional for the Trump administration to try to force Boston or any of our cities or towns to do their work for them.”
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