U.S. Attorney Leah Foley says ICE is doing its job, not kidnapping people

U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Leah Foley is pushing back on criticism from local officials about the way federal immigration authorities are detaining people.

Foley, a Trump appointee, posted a video Wednesday calling out Boston Mayor Michelle Wu for "reckless and inflammatory statements" about ICE agents. Foley also defended immigration enforcement efforts.

This past weekend, in an interview with WBUR, Wu likened federal agents to "secret police."

" People are terrified for their lives and for their neighbors, folks getting snatched off the street by secret police who are wearing masks," Wu said at The WBUR Festival.

On Thursday, Foley spoke with WBUR Morning Edition host Tiziana Dearing. Here are excerpts from the conversation.

" It's simply false," Foley said. "Federal law enforcement agencies are on the streets going through the communities trying to identify and remove illegal criminals from the streets to make our community safer. There's nothing secret about that."

" I did not attack Mayor Wu and I did not attack the Boston Police Department. I attacked the lies that she is spewing, which is that there was secret police and when she compared the work of federal law enforcement agents to that of a neo-Nazi organization, I was shocked and enraged by that statement."

When asked, Foley didn't say whether she's considering legal action against Wu.

Federals agents say they were looking for 18-year-old Gomes Da Silva's father when they arrested him on the way to volleyball practice. His attorneys say he came to this country at 6 years old and his student visa has lapsed. He has no criminal record and has a court hearing scheduled for Thursday.

" The mission of the agents are to identify people who are here illegally and have broken a federal law," Foley said. "He has, and that is why he was taken into custody, but he's getting his due process and is appearing before a judge to determine his fate, and that is just how our system is run."

She said not having a valid visa is a "violation of federal law."

" If he is in this country, unlawfully without any documentation that allows him to be here, that is a violation of federal law," she said.

People in Massachusetts have been arrested by plainclothes federal agents, including Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk. Without her knowledge, federal immigration officials canceled her student visa days before masked federal agents stopped her outside her Somerville home and put her in an unmarked car in March. In written testimony, she said she thought she was being kidnapped for hours after she was picked up. She spent nearly two months in ICE custody.

Foley says agents are doing their jobs, not kidnapping people.

"These officers are on the street," Foley said. "They are marked in vests. They are either executing criminal warrants or lawfully obtained detainers against people who have violated a federal law. We have never been secret that these operations are going on.

"What I do think instills fear in the community is when people think that there is a secret police and that they're being stalked [by] neo-Nazis. That is a lie and that instills fear in the community."

"The fact is if you have committed a federal crime ... the consequence is that you are going to have to pay for committing a federal crime," Foley said. "And so for people who have not committed a federal crime, there is nothing to be fearful of."

Being in the country without a valid status or visa is considered a civil violation of federal law.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration and ICE said they would focus on violent criminals. Foley said agents are looking to identify people here illegally, and may come across others who aren't the target of the main investigation.

"The mandate is to take them into custody, give them their due process and determine whether their status can be altered or not," she said. "But they cannot stay in this country without status."

Foley said federal law enforcement officers wear masks for their privacy and safety. She also said the agents wear body-worn cameras, similar to local police.

"They are now wearing masks because of the lies that are being spewed by people suggesting that they are secret police or neo-Nazis," Foley said.

"I am hopeful that if [local] undercover police officers were being threatened along with their families, that the mayor would allow them to conceal their faces during certain high risk arrests to ensure their safety."

"These officers don't wear a mask in other situations where they are not being doxxed and videoed by people and their children, their families are all being threatened by the people who are being fed misinformation by others."

At a press conference Thursday, the mayor stood by her characterization of some recent ICE arrests: "The U.S. attorney is attacking me for  saying what Bostonians see with our own eyes. We've seen the videos, we've seen it in our neighborhoods, on our streets," she said. "And what other definition of secret police is there, when people are getting snatched off the street by masked individuals; not being told where they're going; disappeared until somehow someone finds some information; not given justification for why they are being taken?"

With additional reporting by WBUR's Eve Zuckoff.