In what version of America is it OK for a city mayor to FOIA the addresses of private citizens legally leasing their property to a government agency, in order to reach out to those property owners to tell them that they disapprove of their choice of tenant because their views don’t align?
The Boston version, apparently.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement posted on a government procurement site that the agency was conducting market research “to identify sources capable of providing surface and/or structured vehicle parking spaces in the vicinity of existing or planned ICE facilities” in cities across the country. That’s government-speak for “we need parking.” Boston’s on the list, and ICE said it was looking for 249 contiguous spaces.
ICE is persona non grata here, and Mayor Michelle Wu signed an executive order to prevent ICE from operating on city property, parks, or parking lots, without a court order or a warrant.
It makes sense that the agency would try to lease space from private owners.
And while Wu admitted in an interview with WCVB’s On The Record Sunday that she can’t stop private property owners from leasing to ICE, that isn’t slamming the brakes on the Wu train. She said her office will file public records requests to learn who is interested in working with the agency, so that the city can contact those entities.
“We can’t block private property owners,” she said, but the city can inform them of their opinion on the issues, which is that “this is not a way to make the community safer.”
There’s a lot to unpack here. First, the property owners are doing nothing illegal, neither is ICE in seeking to rent spaces from them.
Second, the mayor admits the city can’t block the private property owners. So what’s the point?
The point is to let them know the mayor isn’t happy with them. As in, what you’re doing is legal, but according to us, it’s out of line. And what Boston property owner wants to be on the bad side of Mayor Wu?
But what if the property owners genuinely don’t agree that “this is not a way to make the community safer?” What if they read of the arrest of Martin Carias Reyes, a criminal illegal immigrant living in Boston?
ERO Boston tweeted of Reyes’ arrest, noting that the illegal immigrant from Honduras had a criminal history that includes “pending charges for statutory rape, and prior arrests for rape of a child and indecent assault and battery on a child under 14.”
Getting criminal illegal immigrants off our streets is definitely a way to make the community safer. Reyes is hardly ERO’s first such collar, as it and ICE at large have arrested illegal immigrants on drug trafficking, rape, child rape, murder and assault charges. The agency also listed recent arrests of illegal immigrants in Everett, Waltham, Framingham, Worcester, Rhode Island and Maine in its X post.
That, apparently, is inconsequential in these parts. Will property owners be cowed by a call from City Hall? Or will they “resist,” a popular term on the left, as long as the administration being resisted is Donald Trump’s.
Filing FOIAs on property owners to address their leasing spaces to ICE is Big Brother in a “No Kings” t-shirt.
