Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Leah Foley hit out at Boston Mayor Michelle Wu over her criticism of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Massachusetts, which she called "reckless and inflammatory."
Wu spoke out against the ongoing ICE crackdown on Boston, saying in an interview last Friday at the WBUR Festival that "Folks [are] getting snatched off the street by secret police who are wearing masks, who can offer no justification for why certain people are being taken and then detained."
Foley, in a video released on social media on Wednesday, accused Wu of making "reckless and inflammatory statements regarding enforcement efforts made by federal immigration authorities" in the Bay State.
She added that referring to federal agents as "'secret police' is offensive. There are no secret police. ICE agents, along with other federal law enforcement partners, are making immigration arrests. That is no secret."
Wu responded to Foley during an unrelated event at City Hall on Wednesday.
"The U.S. attorney is attacking me for saying what Bostonians see with their own eyes," the mayor said. "We have seen it directly in our communities, and it is undermining our efforts at the local level to keep people safe, because it is spreading fear that undermines the trust with local police. We do things very differently in Boston, and we are proud of how we do things."
She added that police in Boston work "without wearing masks, displaying their badges publicly, with body cameras that document the interactions that take place with full transparency, because we have nothing to hide."
Wu said, "I don't know of any police department that routinely wears masks. We know that there are other groups that routinely wear masks, NSC 131," a neo-Nazi group based in New England, "routinely wears masks."
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.