Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone responds to ICE operation in Facebook statement
“What this raid demonstrates is that sanctuary cities are in compliance with the law.”
Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone is calling the Thursday arrests of hundreds of immigrants across the country on federal immigration violations an act of “political theater.”“The ginned up controversy over sanctuary cities has never been about the law,” Curtatone wrote on Facebook Friday. “It’s been about misinforming the public to create a political issue of cities on the other side of the political aisle. If ICE wants to deport undocumented criminal offenders, it can do that. It literally just did that.”Almost 500 people were arrested as part of the raid by ICE that targeted so-called sanctuary cities, with 50 immigrants taken into custody in Massachusetts, according to The Boston Globe. Thirty of the people arrested in the Bay State had criminal records, but the rest did not, according to figures provided to the Globe by ICE.Curtatone said that the raid actually demonstrated that so-called “sanctuary cities” are not “sheltering undocumented criminals.” He also explained that in Somerville, which has maintained its position as a sanctuary city for 30 years, when someone is arrested their information is entered into a federal database, which is how ICE is informed that an undocumented immigrant has committed a crime. “The only thing stopping ICE from deporting undocumented residents with criminal arrests is ICE,” he said. “What this raid demonstrates is that sanctuary cities are in compliance with the law.”Read his full statement below:
This raid was staged as political theater, but it underlines something I’ve been saying for years: ICE already has all the information it needs to sweep up criminal offenders. The only thing stopping ICE from deporting undocumented residents with criminal arrests is ICE. What this raid demonstrates is that sanctuary cities are in compliance with the law.
Allow me to explain, when we arrest someone their information gets entered into a federal database. That’s how ICE knows an undocumented person has committed a crime in the first place – because we did our jobs. After that, ICE knows where that person lives and when that person’s court dates will be.
We are bound by law (4th Amendment) only to hold the offender as long as the predetermined limits for his/her offense. For instance, if bail gets posted, we have to let the person go. That applies everywhere, not just in self-identified sanctuary cities – a Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision reinforced that earlier this year. Also, in most cases criminal custody gets transferred to the county sheriff, which takes the city out of the picture.
Point is, ICE has a limited window to grab up criminal offenders while they are in custody. After that it has the same information as local law enforcement in terms of where to find that person.
So, despite all the bluster and this latest attempt to grab the headlines, sanctuary cities aren’t sheltering undocumented criminals. The cities are the authority that arrested them, and ICE has been given everything it needs to do its job. What we saw yesterday stands as proof of that fact.
The ginned up controversy over sanctuary cities has never been about the law. It’s been about misinforming the public to create a political issue of cities on the other side of the political aisle. If ICE wants to deport undocumented criminal offenders, it can do that. It literally just did that. If Republican legislators and officials want to reform our broken immigration system (and everyone should want that), then sit down at the table and negotiate it.
Yesterday was about ICE making a show of doing its job. Undocumented criminal offenders never have been shielded from immigration enforcement. Our job was to arrest them when they committed the crime.
