(Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images)
BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — The ICE raids feared in Boston over the weekend may not have ended up taking place, but Mayor Marty Walsh expressed his opposition to the potential deportations and said the very idea of them panicked many local immigrants.
“Placing fear in the hearts and homes of immigrant families is wrong,” Walsh told WBZ NewsRadio. “[President Donald Trump has] been talking about fixing the system that’s broken, and he hasn’t come up with one solution yet other than putting fear in people.”
Boston was not on the list of cities that immigration officials said they would target during the raids.
Those cities were Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Lost Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York, and San Francisco.
Walsh said that 28 percent of Boston’s population is made up of immigrants, and 48 percent of them are first generation.
“Part of Trump’s mantra is that immigrants are bad for the economy … and crime is high because of immigrants, and everything else he says. And that’s completely the opposite of what’s happening in Boston,” Walsh said.
According to Walsh, crime has gone down in Boston and the population is continuing to grow.
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WBZ NewsRadio’s James Rojas (@JamesRojasWBZ) reports