Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the The Daily Wire. The author of this post is Hank Berrien.
After leftist Boston Democratic Mayor Michelle Wu attacked Attorney General Pam Bondi's order to dismantle the city's sanctuary policy, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons fired back on Wednesday, saying the agency would
"flood the zone."
Earlier this month, Bondi sent a letter to Wu that stated,
"For too long, so-called sanctuary jurisdiction policies have undermined this necessary cooperation and obstructed federal immigration enforcement, giving aliens cover to perpetrate crimes in our communities and evade the immigration consequences that federal law requires. You are hereby notified that your jurisdiction has been identified as one that engages in sanctuary policies and practices that thwart federal immigration enforcement to the detriment of the interests of the United States. This ends now."
On Monday, Bondi told Fox News of her directive to sanctuary cities:
"If they don't comply with us, we're going to work with other agencies to cut off their federal funding. We are going to send in law enforcement just like we did during the LA riots, just like we're doing here in Washington, D.C. And if they're not going to keep their citizens safe, Donald Trump will keep them safe."
Wu held a press conference on Tuesday where she arrogantly responded,
"The U.S. Attorney General asked for a response today, so here it is. Stop attacking our cities to hide your administration's failures. Unlike the Trump administration, Boston follows the law, and Boston will not back down from who we are or what we stand for. We will not back away from our community that has made us the safest city in the country."
Bondi had given Wu a Tuesday deadline to respond to the letter she sent to Wu and other leaders of cities and states identified by the Department of Justice as sanctuary jurisdictions, with an order to
"eliminate laws, policies and practices that impede federal law enforcement."
Speaking on
"The Howie Carr Show" on Wednesday, Lyons said ICE is
"going to keep making Boston safe, as she's failing to do with the sanctuary city policies."
"We did Operation Patriot March which yielded over 1,000 arrests, and now you're going to see more ICE agents come to Boston to make sure that we take these public threats out that she wants to let go back in the communities. We're going to keep making America safe. ... We're definitely going to ... flood the zone, especially in sanctuary jurisdictions. Boston and Massachusetts decided to say that they wanted to stay sanctuary. Sanctuary does not mean safer streets. It means more criminal aliens out and about the neighborhood. But 100%, you will see a larger ICE presence."
Lyons accused Massachusetts of ignoring ICE detainers or releasing
"criminal aliens" convicted of crimes in the United States and abroad, adding,
"So not only do we have to go ahead and go after the ones we were targeting, but we have to also deal with jurisdictions releasing criminal aliens in real time while we're out there working the streets. It's not making anyone safer."
Lyons said that although Boston police are barred from helping ICE because of the city's Trust Act, some are helping ICE surreptitiously because they fear
"getting in trouble or getting fired."
He continued:
That's the issue we're seeing in so many jurisdictions. We have so many men and women on the Boston Police Department and other jurisdictions that are so pro-ICE, that want to work with us and that are actually helping us behind the scenes. And that's what I think local leaders don't understand, is they need to talk to the men and women on the ground, because ... there are so many of these criminal aliens that keep getting released to go out and commit more crimes that the local law enforcement have to deal with. We can take that violent criminal alien instantly out of the neighborhood.
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