BOSTON — Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Leah Foley and Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons are blasting Gov. Maura Healey for sending a letter to the Department of Homeland Security “demanding” information on arrests by the federal immigration agency in the Bay State.

“Isn’t it rich that the very governor who refuses to share information with federal law enforcement is now demanding information on ICE arrests?” Foley and Lyons said in a statement Saturday morning posted to X. “Governor Healey should stop using her pulpit to smear ICE and bully private companies. Instead, she should start working with the Trump administration to put American citizens first and keep New England communities safe from criminal alien offenders.”

Healey on Friday sent a letter to Lyons and Kristi Noem, who until President Donald Trump fired her on Thursday ran the DHS, demanding they provide “complete and accurate information on every person arrested in Massachusetts since January 2025, including the identity of each individual, the legal basis for each arrest, case status, detention location, court jurisdiction, and upcoming hearing dates,” all within one week’s time.

“You have repeatedly claimed that ICE is targeting the ‘worst of the worst.’ But even by ICE’s own account, the facts tell a very different story. Many of those taken into custody are longstanding members of our communities — parents, caregivers, and workers whose sudden detention leaves their families in crisis,” Healey wrote in the letter. “This has had far-reaching consequences for their children, families, our communities, and the state of Massachusetts.”

Healey in her letter said that 46% of the 1,461 people arrested or detained by ICE in Operation Patriot in May 2025 “had no criminal background whatsoever.” The governor then averred that for Operation 2.0, conducted in September 2025, 60% of the 1,406 people arrested by ICE in that operation also “had no criminal background whatsoever.”

Lyons and Foley said that Healey failed to acknowledge in her letter that it is in fact a federal crime to be in the United States illegally.

“The truth is that every single alien arrested during Operations Patriot and Patriot 2.0 was in violation of U.S. immigration law. The majority of those had committed serious crimes in the United States or in their native countries. Most were released due to local and state jurisdictions refusing to cooperate with ICE,” Lyons and Foley said in their response.

“Why does Governor Healey wish to impede ICE from removing criminal illegal aliens from the Bay State? In Massachusetts, Operations Patriot and Patriot 2.0 resulted in more than 2,860 arrests of criminal illegal aliens many of whom were let into the country under President Biden,” they said.

Lyons and Foley said it was hypocritical for Healey to demand that DHS and ICE provide her information on arrests while she still refuses to submit data on SNAP recipients to the federal government for what the Trump administration says is to root out fraud and abuse. Healey has pointed to the Trump and Biden administrations, and even COVID-19, for high rates of fraud and a whopping $364 million in SNAP payment errors under her watch.

The governor has increased her actions against and criticisms of ICE ever since launching her reelection campaign in January. In February she signed an executive order prohibiting any new 287(g) agreements, which essentially allows ICE to deputize state and local law enforcement with immigration officer functions, in Massachusetts. The executive order also bans federal agents from making civil arrests in non-public parts of state buildings.

Meanwhile, Democratic state lawmakers have also dialed up their anti-ICE stance, advancing the Protect Act (H. 5158), which aims “to further regulate state and local participation in federal civil immigration enforcement,” and holding a forum on the legislation.

“To anyone who still thinks that this kind of immigration enforcement this federal government is carrying out isn’t predicated on actual white supremacy and politicized fear mongering, you need to wake up,” said state Sen. Liz Miranda, a Democrat. “The secret police, mostly made up of people who couldn’t get a job anywhere else, is running around scooping up pregnant people, high schoolers on their way to volleyball practice.”

Officially titled An Act promoting rule of law, oversight, trust, and equal constitutional treatment (Protect), the legislation would ban Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from using “state or local resources for the primary purpose of facilitating a federal civil immigration enforcement action.”

In addition, it would ban the expansion of future 287(g) agreements with ICE and would also ban Massachusetts police officers from providing information to federal agents on someone’s immigration status or the date they are to be released from custody.

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