Woke Boston mayor goes on fever-pitched hunt to track down and threaten business owners renting parking spots to ICE agents in her city: 'This is unhinged'

Liberal Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has been slammed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) after she warned local business owners not to rent out their parking spots to the agency.

Wu spoke out after a notice appeared on a federal procurement site indicating that Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) was interested in 249 consecutive parking spaces in the city's central business district.

In an August 18 letter addressed to 'Parking Garage and Lot Owners in Boston,' Wu noted that the city had received 'distressing news' about ICE looking for 'surge parking.'

'Were ICE to procure such resources, it would constitute an unprovoked and unwarranted escalation, creating potentially significant risks to public safety and halting economic activity across our entire region,' Wu wrote in her letter, which was obtained by NBC10 Boston.

She continued: 'Today, I ask you to join us: Reject any proposition by ICE to facilitate an attack on the people of Boston.'

The DHS rebuked the Democratic mayor last Tuesday on X, writing that 'these actions by sanctuary Mayor Michelle Wu are unhinged.'

'She knows she has NO authority to block us from using private property,' the DHS posted. 'So she's hunting down private property owners and threatening them for working with ICE because she'd rather intimidate law-abiding Bostonians than get criminal illegal aliens OFF the street.'

On Tuesday morning, a DHS spokesperson told the Daily Mail that 'sanctuary politicians must stop putting politics above public safety' when asked about the public spat with Wu.

The DHS told the Daily Mail that its law enforcement officers 'have to have a more visible presence so that we can find and apprehend the criminals let out of jails and back into communities' when politicians 'bar local law enforcement from working with DHS.'

'Instead of working with us, Massachusetts lawmakers are choosing to RELEASE violent criminals from their jails directly back into our communities to perpetrate more crimes and create more victims,' the statement continued.

In response to Wu's comments, the DHS also sent the Daily Mail a list of four 'public safety threats' who were illegal immigrants that had been arrested by ICE in Massachusetts.

The list included two men with incidents in Boston: Jorge Luis Pena, from the Dominican Republic, who was convicted of statutory rape of a child and indecent assault and battery on a child under 14, as well as Omar Johnson, from Jamaica, who was convicted of armed bank robbery.

The two other Massachusetts men included in the DHS' response were Phuc Trong Nguyen, from Vietnam, previously convicted of rape, sexual assault and kidnapping in New Bedford, and Leonardo Miliano, also from the Dominican Republic, previously convicted for carrying a loaded firearm without a license in Lynn.

Greg Vasil, the Greater Boston Real Estate Board CEO, estimated that each spot could cost ICE roughly $30 per day, equivalent to about $13 million over the proposed five-year lease he told NBC10 Boston. 

ICE's Boston office wrote on X last Monday: 'If private citizens want to allow federal law enforcement onto their own property, they should be allowed to do so—free of threats, intimidation and coercion from their radical left-wing mayor who shamelessly compared ICE agents to a neo-Nazi group.'

Boston previously banned ICE from using municipal property for immigration enforcement in February.

In her letter to Boston's parking garage and lot owners, Wu noted that her executive order followed the deadly shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, both 37, in January during clashes with immigration agents.

Good was shot by ICE agent Jonathan Ross, while Pretti was shot by two Customs and Border Protection officers. 

Wu also wrote that 'ICE's threats against cities are not new,' as she pushed back on their interest in the parking spaces.

'This federal administration has used ICE surge operations to attack peaceful American cities with deadly and disastrous consequences, from Biddeford, ME to Houston, TX,' Wu said.

The Democratic mayor called on government, business and community leaders in Boston to 'stand together' in order to 'protect public safety' and keep the city's economy humming.

In the letter, Wu said the city had submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for 'any local responses to ICE.'

'We will keep you updated as we push for a response,' she said in the letter to the lot owners. 'Thank you again for your partnership.'

Wu also mentioned her planned use of public records to identify lot owners potentially working with ICE in an interview last week.

'We strongly oppose any expansion of their efforts here, and would encourage and will be reaching out to property owners to try to ensure that they're not adding to a surge of unlawful and dangerous activity,' Wu told WCVB.

A Boston city spokesperson told the Daily Mail on Tuesday morning: 'Mayor Wu and state and local leaders across the political spectrum agree that violent ICE surges make our communities less safe.'

Their statement said cities with surges in ICE activity had seen 'restaurants and businesses close to protect their employees and customers, decimating economic activity.'

'The Mayor's letter asks property owners to reject an unwarranted escalation by ICE that will endanger our communities, hurt our economy and undermine public safety,' it added.

Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, a Democrat, also spoke out against ICE on the parking issue.

'We absolutely cannot allow ICE to have 250 parking spots in downtown Boston while they are engaging in these illegal tactics,' Healey said on August 5. 'We cannot enable them to ramp up even further in Massachusetts.'

Healey was signing the PROTECT Act into law, which aims to ban ICE from making immigration arrests at courthouses, schools, child care centers, hospitals and health care facilities in the state without a court order or judicial warrant.