Aug 15, 2025 Featured Videos
Brooke Sutherland, Bloomberg Boston Bureau Chief and author of the Industrial Strength newsletter, discusses Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and her fight to get information from ICE on who they're arresting in her city.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has vowed to find out from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement who they’re arresting in her city and why. But despite repeated efforts to get answers, federal immigration authorities have refused to provide even basic details, Wu told Bloomberg.
Wu pledged in June to regularly submit Freedom of Information Act requests to ICE, seeking the names of immigrants who have been ensnared in deportation efforts in Boston; an explanation of why they were detained, including criminal records; and the location where they are being held. Communication on those requests has been paltry, with federal officials failing to share any information, Wu said.
Acting ICE director Todd Lyons in June told the Boston Herald that the agency welcomed the push for transparency because it will help “show how the mayor’s lack of cooperation hurts her neighborhoods.” Still, Boston has struggled to get answers about even the number of detainer requests that have been submitted after ICE said local officials were ignoring some of the appeals, Wu said.
“We’ve asked half a dozen times in all different ways and still months later have not been able to receive something as basic as a list of what detainer requests that you claim to have sent were actually sent,” Wu said in an interview on Thursday at Bloomberg’s Boston office. On certain issues, communication with the Trump administration “has not been possible — not for lack of trying.”
Officials in Boston and other cities have complained that ICE is keeping the public in the dark about its operations and disputed President Donald Trump’s claims that the enforcement campaign is focused on “the worst of the worst.” More than a third of ICE arrests nationwide last month were of people with no US criminal convictions or pending charges.