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BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — Homeland Security is running ads in the Boston area attempting to recruit local police officers for ICE.
As ICE ramps up its presence in Boston and surrounding areas in Massachusetts, the organization continues to try to obtain more agents to increase their numbers.
Similar ads have been running in other sanctuary and Democrat-led states asking local police to join their deportation efforts.
The messaging of some ads mention sanctuary cities, stating that they are "ordered to stand down, while dangerous illegals walk free," with others referencing to local police officers that they "took an oath to protect and serve."
Many members of the public along with state officials have expressed concern over how ICE has handled the detainment of immigrants along with the demographic of the persons they have targeted and taken into custody.
According to the Associated Press, The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit on Sept. 4 against Mayor Michelle Wu, the city of Boston, and its police department over its sanctuary city policies. They claimed the city is interfering with immigration enforcement.
Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the increased deportation efforts of ICE would focus on "the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens," living in Massachusetts. She stated in a press release, obtained by the AP, that "sanctuary policies like those pushed by Mayor Wu not only attract and harbor criminals but protect them at the peril of law-abiding American citizens."
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey expressed some of these concerns while speaking about ICE's presence in the area.
"What I'm hearing day after day is stories from people saying that they witnessed ICE agents removing a landscaper, a construction worker, a nanny, a grandmother who's a home health aide. It's one thing if they're going to be targeting criminals but when you're taking 16-year-olds off the street on their way to school, or on their way to practice with no record that is not what we thought we were getting, and I think that's why people are really outraged," Healey said.
These arrests of non-criminals have been called "collateral arrests," by ICE.
ICE launched an operation called "Patriot 2.0" in Massachusetts during the earlier half of Sept. this year, coming with an increase of deportation efforts and ICE agent presence in Boston.
The recruitment ads come with mixed reviews from the public, leaving some residents concerned and others in support of their message.
One local resident said, "it's good in a way that it stops illegal immigration and stops alien migrants from being here," and another said, "yeah it's great, safer streets for Americans."
Elizabeth, an Arlington resident said, "I have not seen the ad, but I've heard of it, and I think it's horrible. I just don't agree with anything that ICE is doing."
Another local resident expressed concerns about the ads "draining well-trained people away from the variety of needs of police officers in local communities."
WBZ NewsRadio’s James Rojas (@JamesRojas.bsky.social) reports.