In response to an announcement from federal immigration officials that they recently completed a massive enforcement operation that led to the arrest of 1,461 illegal aliens across Massachusetts and Greater Boston, the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance issued the following statement

“We applaud federal authorities for doing the job our state’s elected leaders refuse to do. While Governor Maura Healey and Attorney General Andrea Campbell continue their endless games of political posturing and virtue signaling, federal officers quietly got to work enforcing our laws and removing people in the country illegally, starting with violent offenders," said Paul D. Craney, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance.

Code named Operation Patriot, the operation was ICE’s largest enforcement action in state history and reportedly launched in direct response to Massachusetts’ sanctuary policies, which prohibit or limit local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities. Of the 1,461 arrests, 790 individuals had criminal convictions or charges, while 277 had final orders of removal.

“It should outrage every Massachusetts resident that hundreds of these individuals had previously been released by sanctuary cities like Boston, despite active ICE detainers, only to return to our communities and reoffend. Our state government’s refusal to cooperate with basic law enforcement is not compassion, it’s dereliction of duty," said Craney.

Governor Healey has repeatedly claimed that Massachusetts is not a sanctuary state and expressed her own uncertainty about the term's definition. However, in 2017, as Attorney General, Healey's office played a pivotal role in the Supreme Judicial Court case Lunn v. Commonwealth, which determined that Massachusetts law does not authorize local law enforcement to detain individuals solely based on ICE detainer requests, making the Commonwealth a de-facto sanctuary state. Healey hailed the decision as “a victory for the rule of law and smart immigration and criminal justice policies.”

As Governor, Healey has spent billions of taxpayer dollars making Massachusetts a magnet state for illegal and inadmissible migrants. Attorney General Campbell, the state’s top law enforcement official, has also used her office to ignore the problem, and at times, spend more taxpayer money to promote the sanctuary policies.

“Massachusetts taxpayers deserve a government that puts their safety above performative politics. Healey and Campbell’s refusal to enforce immigration laws or assist federal authorities has real consequences—and it’s federal law enforcement, not Beacon Hill, who are cleaning up the mess," Craney added.

The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance urges the legislature and the Governor to end sanctuary policies and restore full cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Public safety must take precedence over ideological appeasement.