Boston mayor stands by $650,000 legal bill to prepare for sanctuary city congressional hearing

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu stood by her decision to spend well over half a million taxpayer dollars to prepare for a congressional hearing on sanctuary city policies.

Earlier in March, the mayors of Boston, Chicago, Denver and New York City were called before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Accountability to answer questions on their respective sanctuary city laws and how those policies may have enabled illegal migrant-related crime. Shortly before the hearing began, Wu’s office revealed she had spent a whopping $650,000 of the city’s money in preparation for the hearing.

During an interview with GBH News, the Democrat mayor acknowledged those funds could’ve gone toward “much more important things,” but claimed the stakes were “too high” given the prospect of jail time and federal funding being on the line.

“When there were threats to put me in jail, to take away funding, I needed to make sure that I was doing everything possible to represent our city well, to represent the policies with complete accuracy and having legal representation was a necessary part of that,” Wu said.

While there is no official definition of a “sanctuary city,” the term generally applies to any jurisdiction that has laws or policies in place restricting cooperation and communication between local officials and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Boston first enacted the Trust Act in 2014, restricting how the city’s law enforcement can interact with ICE agents or any other federal immigration official.

In response to President Donald Trump’s election victory, bringing his promise of unprecedented deportations closer to reality, the Boston City Council in December 2024 voted to reaffirm its sanctuary city status.

The Trump administration has since applied pressure on major sanctuary cities, with the Department of Justice ordering to withhold federal grants from sanctuary jurisdictions and waging lawsuits against them. Trump’s DOJ has also established a task force aimed at investigating sanctuary jurisdictions that may be crossing the line into full-blown obstruction of justice.

The GOP squeeze on sanctuary cities came to a head when House Oversight Chairman James Comer on Jan. 28 delivered letters to Democratic Mayors Eric Adams of New York City, Brandon Johnson of Chicago, Mike Johnston of Denver and Wu of Boston, asking all to hand over internal documentation and communication between staffers and outside personnel relating to their cities’ policies.

In her opening remarks to the committee, Wu touted her vote as a former city council member for the 2014 Trust Act and its updated version in 2019. The Democrat mayor suggested that, without a criminal warrant, the Boston police are unable to keep an illegal migrant detained for ICE.

When asked by Florida GOP Rep. Byron Donalds how much money Boston has spent on illegal immigration, the mayor was unable to provide an answer, saying that the city does not ask individuals about their immigration status. During the hearing, Florida GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna announced she would be referring all four mayors to the DOJ for potential prosecution.

Border czar Tom Homan, who is leading the Trump administration’s deportation efforts, previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation that he is okay with sanctuary jurisdictions not helping his ICE agents arrest criminal illegal migrants. However, the border czar noted that if these sanctuary officials cross the line into blatant obstruction, he won’t hesitate to hold them accountable.

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