BOSTON — Mayor Michelle Wu might as well have begged Pamela Bondi to slap the cuffs on her. In a fiery two-page letter to the Attorney General, Wu openly dared Washington to make good on threats to prosecute her for protecting illegal immigrants.

Wu’s manifesto was laced with defiance. She accused the Trump administration of “false and continuous attacks,” claimed Boston is “the safest major city in America,” and vowed the city will never bow to “tyranny.” She even dressed it up with Revolutionary War references, as if Paul Revere himself were drafting sanctuary policy.

The problem is that Wu’s safe city rhetoric looks like a bad joke on the streets. In just days, a man was shot on Blue Hill Avenue, another stabbed inside a Dorchester Stop & Shop, a Harvard scholar battered by a mob at AMC Boston Common, and dirt bike gangs hijacked city tunnels. Six people landed in hospitals in one bloody night. Some beacon of freedom.

Wu also avoided mentioning the tab nobody in City Hall wants to talk about: Boston taxpayers have shelled out millions in housing, schooling, and healthcare for illegal immigrants while locals wrestle with soaring rents and understaffed police. The mayor’s letter glossed right over those costs, preferring to play martyr in a battle with Bondi.

The timing made it worse. Wu’s big stand landed just as Operation Patriot rolled through Massachusetts, hauling in 1,461 arrests — including 377 from Boston itself. Among them were rapists, killers, and child predators that sanctuary policies helped keep on the streets. Names like Emilio Jose Pena-Casilla, who cut off his ICE monitor after a rape charge, and Cesar Polanco, paroled after murdering his pregnant wife, are chilling reminders of who slips through Wu’s “welcome for everyone.”

Yet Wu insists Boston is safer than ever and doubles down on the legalese. She cited anti-commandeering court cases to argue Washington can’t draft local cops into deportation duty. And she boasted Boston still works with the feds on “real crime,” pointing to joint drug and trafficking busts as proof.

Her closing line said it all: “Boston will never back down from being a beacon of freedom, and a home for everyone.”

It’s a bold message, but for many residents watching the blood and chaos pile up, it sounds less like freedom — and more like lawlessness on tap, paid for by the people footing the bill.