Cambridge City Council Votes To Strengthen Sanctuary Ordinance Amid Trump’s Immigration Crackdown

The Cambridge City Council voted to strengthen restrictions on local police collaboration with federal immigration enforcement on Monday, citing “increasingly aggressive federal actions.”

The policy order approved by the Council asks City Manager Yi-An Huang ’05 to amend a section of Cambridge’s Welcoming Community Ordinance, which limits cooperation between the Cambridge Police Department and federal law enforcement on immigration related matters.

Current ordinance prevents CPD from assisting with federal immigration enforcement activity, unless it is “in response to a request to assist with support services deemed necessary to ensure officer safety or to prevent a breach of the peace during a federal operation” — allowing CPD officers to comply with some federal requests, like traffic control or police escorts.

The Council’s vote on Monday requests amendments to clarify that the “sole role” of CPD is to “protect public safety and not to assist or facilitate the work of ICE, especially given that those actions may be unlawful.”

The policy order passed with approval from eight councilors and an abstention from Mayor E. Denise Simmons. It does not include a draft of the amendments but asks Huang to submit one to the Council in a “timely manner.”

Councilor Jivan G. Sobrinho-Wheeler first introduced the policy order last week — just days after the Department of Homeland Security named Cambridge and more than 200 other sanctuary cities across the nation on a list of jurisdictions they accused of “defying federal immigration law.”

The DHS demanded that sanctuary cities revise their policies to “align with federal immigration laws” and to “renew their obligation to protect American citizens, not dangerous illegal aliens” in a May 29 statement accompanying the list.

The statement and list of jurisdictions were quietly removed from the department’s website days later, and Cambridge has not received any formal notice of noncompliance.

But federal immigration enforcement activity has continued to escalate across the country. In the days and hours before the City Council met on Monday evening, President Donald Trump called in the National Guard and the Marines to guard ICE agents during protests against a Los Angeles immigration crackdown.

In Cambridge, the tightening federal net has once again pushed city leaders to consider the role of local law enforcement when federal agents come to their cities — and officials have reiterated that they do not want to assist the Trump administration’s efforts.

“We don’t control the actions of the federal government, but one of the things we do control is our Welcoming Community Ordinance,” Sobrinho-Wheeler said.

The proposed amendments to the ordinance would also require CPD officers to “document the actions of ICE employees,” including their badge numbers, if residents call in with reports of ICE activity.

“We keep talking about ICE doing these abductions, when, in reality, we have no idea who is doing a lot of these abductions. We don’t know if it was ICE. We don’t know if it was a different federal department,” Sobrinho-Wheeler said, “but that is really the least we can expect and ask our city employees to help identify these folks, if they are actually ICE agents, and document that info.”

A botched arrest just outside Cambridge sparked confusion after the U.S. citizen who was wrongfully detained said he was told the agents arresting him were from ICE. But the agency denied direct involvement, and Customs and Border Protection eventually claimed responsibility in a statement containing multiple inaccuracies.

But the last provision, asking CPD officers to document interactions with federal immigration agents, drew some hesitancy from both Simmons and police.

The Cambridge Police Patrol Officers Association, the union representing CPD officers, expressed concerns that asking ICE agents to identify themselves would put officers in a “confrontational situation,” according to Councilor Paul F. Toner, who exercised his “charter right” when the policy order was introduced, tabling discussion until this week.

“The Cambridge Police have been living under the rules of a sanctuary city and Welcoming Community Ordinance. They’ve been living up to those values,” Toner said in the Monday meeting, “but they did have some concerns, especially in light of the situations we’ve seen across the country, and want to avoid having something escalated between them and federal agents.”

Simmons, who abstained from voting on the policy order, attributed her hesitancy to the threat of escalating tensions with ICE.

“We have a moral obligation to stand with our immigrant neighbors. However, I do have some concern about the specific mechanisms in the policy order, particularly the directive that the police officers to document ICE agents’ badge numbers and actions,” Simmons said.

“I say that because I’ve seen some of the aggressive behavior in other cities and towns, and I see that the federal government is now deploying the military to participate in control of people that are voicing their concerns about what ICE is doing, or people acting on behalf of ICE,” she added. “I just worry about setting not only our citizens but our police officers in harm’s way.”

The CPPOA wrote in a statement that they were concerned that the proposed amendments would make officers “vulnerable to being perceived as taking actions interfering with federal agents” in a Tuesday statement.

ICE agents are not legally obligated to provide their name or badge number under current federal regulations, though they are required to identify themselves as federal immigration enforcement “when it is safe and practicable to do so,” according to City Solicitor Megan Bayer.

With the policy order passed, the city will continue to “work with the police department leadership and the union to try to come to consensus,” as they work to draft amendments to the ordinance, according to Bayer.

—Staff writer Shawn A. Boehmer can be reached at shawn.boehmer@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @ShawnBoehmer.

—Staff writer Laurel M. Shugart can be reached at laurel.shugart@thecrimson.com. Follow them on X @laurelmshugart.