Boston officials say ‘no conflict’ between immigration policy and federal law in lawsuit

Boston officials say ‘no conflict’ between immigration policy and federal law in lawsuit

Luis Fieldman

Sun, February 1, 2026 at 10:01 PM UTC

3 min read

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Boston officials defended the city’s “sanctuary” immigration policy and argued that it does not conflict with federal law in the latest filing of a lawsuit brought by the Department of Justice last fall.

In court documents filed on Wednesday, city officials doubled down on their efforts to have the lawsuit tossed and responded to the federal government’s claims that the city impedes and obstructs immigration agents from enforcing laws. A federal judge in Boston is weighing a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which Mayor Michelle Wu has described as an “unconstitutional attack” on the city.

The filing argues that the Trust Act, which prohibits city officers from working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on civil immigration efforts, ensures that the city’s resources go to local priorities “reflecting the needs and values of the people and City of Boston,” the filing states.

“Under the Trust Act, Boston does not participate in federal civil immigration enforcement,” the filing states. “Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, it is not required to.”

ICE has separate divisions for Enforcement and Removal Operations and Homeland Security Investigations. The latter works on public safety issues like human trafficking or drug and weapons trafficking, and Boston police can freely collaborate with the federal agency on these criminal issues.

The Trust Act prevents police officers from asking people about their immigration status and making arrests or holding people based on ICE administrative warrants if there are no criminal charges. It also prevents police from “performing the functions of an immigration officer.”

Earlier this month, the Department of Justice argued that the city’s policy “creates a substantial obstacle” to ICE operations, regulates where and how its immigration officers may make civil arrests and “discriminatorily restricts disclosure of information only to federal immigration authorities.”

“Further obstruction of the enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws must be prevented,” the federal government said in previous court documents.

The Trust Act was first signed in 2014. The law is also in line with a 2017 ruling by Massachusetts’ highest court that found that under state law local officials cannot detain a person based on civil immigration law violations alone.

In November, city officials filed a three-page legal brief seeking to dismiss the federal government’s lawsuit, stating that the lawsuit failed to state any claims that federal law preempts, or overrides, the Trust Act. The brief also states that federal officials failed to state any claims that the city’s law “impermissibly discriminates” or “regulates” the United States.

The latest filing states that “compulsory” participation that the federal government demands would be unconstitutional.

“The federal government cannot commandeer state and local governments to advance a federal policy agenda, yet that is precisely what the United States seeks here,” the filing states.

“The Trust Act regulates only City personnel; it says nothing about how federal officials may — within the bounds of their constitutional and statutory authority — perform federal functions," the filing states.

The lawsuit names the City of Boston, Wu, Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox and the Boston Police Department as defendants. Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell filed a legal brief in November supporting the city’s motion to dismiss.

Attorney General Pam Bondi has aggressively attacked Boston leaders, calling its mayor “among the worst sanctuary offenders in America” and saying that the city’s policies are “designed to undermine law enforcement and protect illegal aliens from justice.”

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