Summary

Boston City Council voted 9-4 to kill a transparency request that would have forced Mayor Wu to reveal whether ignored ICE detainer requests involved criminals
The councilor who filed the request says colleagues were "under political pressure from the mayor's office" to vote it down
A Wu ally said releasing the information would give "oxygen" to a "false narrative" — so the Council buried it instead
BPD admitted it ignored all 57 federal detainer requests last year — every single one
ICE says it sent Boston 198 detainer requests in 2024. Boston Police say they only got 15. Nobody can explain the gap.
One ignored detainer belonged to a Haitian gang member who went on to rack up 17 criminal convictions on Boston's streets

BOSTON — The Boston City Council had one simple question in front of it Wednesday: should the public be allowed to know whether the federal immigration detainers that Boston Police ignored involved actual criminals?

Nine councilors said no.

Not "we'll look into it." Not "let's discuss this further." Just: no.

In a 9-4 vote, the Council killed a routine transparency request that would have given Mayor Michelle Wu one week to hand over specifics about ICE detainer requests ignored by Boston Police from January 2024 to the present — including whether any of them involved open criminal cases, the Boston Herald first reported.

The request was straightforward. The response was a wall.

What they didn't want you to see

The so-called "17F request" was about as straightforward as government paperwork gets.

It asked Wu's office to hand over all communication between any federal agency and Boston Police regarding detainer requests. It asked how many detainer requests the city received from ICE. It asked how Boston Police responded to each one.

And it asked the question that apparently terrified City Hall: did any of those ignored detainers involve open criminal cases?

The mayor's office didn't just dodge the question. According to the councilor who filed the request, Wu's team actively pressured his colleagues to kill it.

"Some City Council colleagues were under political pressure from the mayor's office to vote against releasing these documents to the public," he said in a statement to the Herald. "In the interest of transparency and accountability, these documents should be provided to city officials and the public."

They pressured. It worked. Nine votes to bury it.

The 'false narrative' defense

Councilor Ben Weber, a Wu ally, led the charge against transparency — and his argument was something else.

Weber didn't say the information should stay private for security reasons. He didn't cite legal privilege. He didn't argue the request was overbroad.

He said answering the question would help Donald Trump.

"I personally do not want to give any oxygen to that false narrative, and I do feel like this 17F is aimed at that," Weber told the Council, referring to the Trump administration's position that sanctuary cities are unsafe.

Let that sink in. A Boston city councilor voted to hide public records — not because the public doesn't deserve to see them, but because the answer might be politically inconvenient.

Weber also warned about the federal immigration crackdown, saying "we've seen cities terrorized, people pepper-sprayed in their faces, doors knocked down, constitutional rights being violated and people being murdered."

What Weber didn't address — not once — is the possibility that among the detainer requests Boston Police ignored, some involved people who posed a genuine threat to public safety.

That question, apparently, doesn't deserve oxygen either.

What happens when detainers get ignored

Wisteguens Jean Quely Charles arrested by ICE ERO Boston — Wisteguens Jean Quely Charles, a Haitian gang member with 17 convictions, is arrested by ICE ERO Boston. Photo: ICE.

If all of this sounds abstract, here's what it looks like when a detainer gets ignored.

Wisteguens Jean Quely Charles, a 25-year-old Haitian national and member of a violent Haitian street gang, was arrested by ICE ERO Boston on January 22, 2025. By that point, Charles had racked up 17 criminal convictions in just two years — including drug possession and distribution, carrying dangerous weapons, illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.

Seventeen convictions. In two years. In Boston.

ICE had flagged Charles back in April 2023, issuing an immigration detainer after one of his arrests landed him at the Norfolk House of Correction. The facility released him on October 20, 2023 — without honoring the detainer.

MASSDAILYNEWS

STAY UPDATED

Get Mass Daily News delivered to your inbox

What happened next was predictable. Charles went right back to committing crimes. Conviction after conviction after conviction, for another full year, until ICE finally tracked him down again.

"Mr. Charles is illegally present in the United States and has consistently broken our laws causing significant harm," Acting Field Office Director Patricia H. Hyde said in a statement.

Drugs. Guns. Assault. A gang member with a rap sheet that stretches across every category of violent crime — and someone ignored a federal request to hold him.

Is Charles one of the 57 ignored detainers? One of the 198? The Boston City Council just voted to make sure you never find out.

It gets worse. Much worse.

Charles is a gang member with guns and drugs. But he's not even the most disturbing case ICE has pulled off Boston's streets.

Sostenes Perez-Lopez, a 59-year-old illegal Guatemalan immigrant, was arrested by ICE in Brighton — a Boston neighborhood — on February 18, 2025, on two counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14. ICE had lodged a detainer with the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department back in November 2024. A Boston Municipal Court judge released him on bail in December with GPS monitoring. ICE grabbed him anyway.

A child sex predator. In Boston. Released on bail despite a federal detainer.

Abraham Malpica, a 40-year-old illegal Mexican immigrant, was arrested in Roxbury — another Boston neighborhood — on charges of child pornography and electronically surveilling a partially nude or nude person. Malpica had been caught by Border Patrol multiple times before, in Arizona and California, and voluntarily returned to Mexico. He came right back and settled in Boston, where he allegedly preyed on children.

And then there was Operation Patriot 2.0 — the September 2025 sweep that netted over 1,400 illegal aliens across Massachusetts. Among those arrested in the Boston area: Raj Kumar Sah, a 34-year-old Indian national, on charges of indecent assault, child enticement, and trafficking of a person for sexual servitude. Also Souvanheuang Phachansiri, a 65-year-old Laotian national convicted of second-degree murder and kidnapping, living freely in Boston.

Murderers. Child traffickers. Sex predators. All living in Boston under the protection of the city's sanctuary policies.

These aren't hypotheticals. These aren't "false narratives." These are named individuals, with specific charges, arrested on Boston's streets. And the City Council just voted to make sure you can't find out whether any of them were among the detainers that Boston Police ignored.

15 or 198? Nobody can explain.

Here's where the story gets worse.

Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox confirmed last month that his department ignored all 57 federal detainer requests issued in 2025.

All of them. One hundred percent.

Cox pointed to the Boston Trust Act — the 2014 law that makes Boston a sanctuary city and blocks police from cooperating with ICE on civil immigration matters.

But here's what Cox didn't mention: the Trust Act has a carve-out. It explicitly allows cooperation with ICE on criminal matters — human trafficking, child exploitation, drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, cybercrimes. The law Boston cites as justification for ignoring detainers actually requires cooperation when crimes are involved.

Which means if any of those 57 ignored detainers involved criminal cases, BPD didn't just look the other way. It may have violated its own law.

And then there's the number that nobody in city government wants to talk about.

Last year, Cox told the Council that Boston Police received 15 civil immigration detainer requests in 2024. Just 15. Nothing to see here.

ICE said the real number was 198.

Not 15. Not 20. Not even close. One hundred and ninety-eight. And some of those, ICE officials said, involved people arrested by Boston Police for "egregious criminal activity."

The difference between 15 and 198 isn't a rounding error. It's either staggering incompetence or something much worse. And as of Wednesday, the Boston City Council has voted not to look into it.

Who voted to keep you in the dark

Boston City Council vote on ICE detainer transparency — How every Boston City Councilor voted on the ICE detainer transparency request.

The nine councilors who voted to block the transparency request:

Council President Liz Breadon
Gabriela Coletta Zapata
Sharon Durkan
Ruthzee Louijeune
Julia Mejia
Enrique Pepén
Henry Santana
Ben Weber
Brian Worrell

The four who voted for transparency:

Miniard Culpepper
John FitzGerald
Ed Flynn
Erin Murphy

What are they afraid of?

The question at the center of all of this is not complicated.

Did Boston Police ignore federal requests to hold people who were charged with or suspected of committing serious crimes?

Yes or no. That's it.

Nine members of the Boston City Council just voted to make sure you never get the answer.

Think about what that means. If every single ignored detainer was purely civil — no criminal cases, no public safety threat — then releasing the records would have been a slam dunk for the mayor. It would have vindicated Wu's sanctuary policies. It would have proven the system works exactly as designed.

Instead, Wu's allies fought to keep the records sealed. They pressured colleagues to vote no. They argued that even asking the question was giving "oxygen" to a "false narrative."

That's not what you do when the answer is good for you.

That's what you do when you're afraid of what the records will show.

Boston City Council votes 9-4 to BLOCK public from learning whether ignored ICE detainers involved actual criminals — councilor says mayor's office pressured the vote