Federal immigration enforcement officers arrested 82 illegal aliens in a late-September sweep of New Bedford and Fall River, Massachusetts — and the criminal histories of those apprehended demolish the claims of every politician who rushed to defend them.
Gov. Maura Healey, Sen. Ed Markey, and New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell all insisted the raid targeted people with "no criminal record." Healey even claimed she "sat with the children of those apprehended" during a televised debate. The facts on the ground tell a different story.
According to ICE Boston, many of the 82 illegal aliens arrested have lengthy criminal histories including assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, possession of child sexual abuse material, extortion by threat of injury, strangulation or suffocation, driving under the influence, and larceny. The agency highlighted seven individuals with the most serious records. Several had already been released from local custody after jurisdictions refused to honor ICE detainers — the exact mechanism sanctuary policies use to put criminal aliens back on the street.
Acting ICE Boston Field Office Director Joseph Sher didn't mince words: "Time and time again, sanctuary politicians in Massachusetts have made the dumbfounding choice to prioritize dangerous criminal illegal aliens rather than their law-abiding American citizens."
Mayor Mitchell acknowledged at least eight arrests of people going about "morning routines" but conceded only that they lacked records "beyond minor motor vehicle violations" — a claim ICE's own data now contradicts. Mitchell also complained ICE failed to notify local police, framing the federal enforcement operation as an "overreach."
The pattern repeats elsewhere. In Alexandria, Virginia, ICE arrested Joshua Gabriel Car Hombrebueno, an illegal immigrant from the Philippines convicted of secretly filming adults and children inside a bakery bathroom. A mother and her 3-year-old daughter discovered a recording phone hidden in the restroom at Gustave Boulangerie. Hombrebueno originally faced three felony charges and nine misdemeanors. Prosecutors let him plead to two misdemeanors involving adults, and a guilty finding on the felony charge involving a child was withheld under the plea agreement. His sentence: six months in jail and probation, according to WJLA. He never should have been in the country to begin with.
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin framed the broader enforcement action plainly: ICE arrested "pedophiles, sexual predators, domestic assailants, and other public safety threats from our communities."
The Boston Herald reported the criminal histories; the Massachusetts political class buried them. Healey, Markey, and Mitchell had the information — or could have waited for it — before pronouncing the raid an injustice. They chose not to. The question now is whether any of them will answer for the specific crimes committed by illegal aliens their sanctuary policies helped keep free.
