Agents and cars from Immigration and Customs Enforcement were seen in Cambridge on Friday in Harvard Square and along Massachusetts Avenue between MIT and Harvard University, said Jaya Savita, executive director of the Asian Pacific Islander’s Civic Action Network and a steering committee member of the Luce Immigrant Justice Network. Luce is the group that tracks immigration enforcement actions across the state and notifies neighbors of sightings.
There were no reports of detentions by Ice agents, though, and the purpose was probably to create fear in new and returning college student, Savita said.
Many students at the universities hold foreign student visas, which have been canceled abruptly in some cases since the reelection of president Donald Trump, including without notification. Tufts University graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk of Turkey was surrounded by masked agents near the Somerville campus March 25 and detained for more than six weeks in Louisiana – apparently because of an essay she co-wrote that was critical of Israel; the government withdrew her visa without telling her. Harvard has helped students regain their visas, according to news reports.
Ice’s press office didn’t reply to an email Monday asking about the sighting of cars and agents. The agency is stepping up enforcement actions in Boston and surrounding areas, The Boston Globe reported.
An alert sent out Friday by an unidentified community group and confirmed by Luce said Ice cars were seen on Mount Auburn Street near Blue Bottle Coffee and near The Friendly Toast restaurant. Ice vehicles were also seen on Massachusetts Avenue, and Savita said agents made an appearance on foot.
Six Ice interactions
Police commissioner Christine Elow provided numbers and details for the first time on Ice interactions with police at Monday’s meeting of the City Council.
Since January, federal agents have asked police for information about five people who had been arrested, Elow said. In each case, police refused to answer, citing the city’s Welcoming Community ordinance prohibiting police from cooperating with immigration enforcement, Elow said.
Ice often detains immigrants inside and outside local police lockups after they have been arrested. Agents ask police, courts and sheriffs to hold their target after they would ordinarily be released so agents have time to get to the location. City law forbids police from cooperating with such Ice “detainer” requests, and a state Supreme Judicial Court decision says courts, jails and law enforcement agencies can’t hold someone purely for immigration reasons.
In one case that the police commissioner described, a New Street resident called police Feb. 19 to report that an Ice agent knocked on the door, “showed a photo and said ‘Would you let us in so we can get this individual?’” Elow said. Police went to the home and talked to the resident but didn’t interact with Ice, the commissioner said.
In one of the other five cases, members of an Ice fugitive task force asked police Saturday about a person who had been previously arrested for drunken driving, Elow said. When police wouldn’t answer, the agents asked whether they could make a “walk-in” public records request, and were referred to the city’s law office, the commissioner said.
Another request, on Feb. 23, involved a person previously arrested for a “violent crime,” Elow said. After police again cited the Welcoming City ordinance, agents “did tell us they were going to be in the area of Essex Street where this individual lived,” the commissioner said.
Before Elow’s disclosures, the only incident police had reported was a May 10 detention. The 35-year-old Revere woman was seized by agents waiting outside police headquarters as she left after being released without bail on a misdemeanor shoplifting and assault arrest, police said.
Police had refused to tell agents whether the woman was still being held. But submitting a suspect’s fingerprints to a national database can notify Ice that an undocumented immigrant has been arrested, Cambridge police have said. The database is tied to records held by the Department of Homeland Security.
“Only at the beginning”
The six cases in the first 36 weeks of 2025 compares with four in all of 2024, showing “a slight uptick” in Ice actions, Elow said.
City manager Yi-An Huang told councillors on Monday that “at this point I would say that the overall focus for Ice actions has not been in Cambridge.” Federal agents have been more active in “gateway communities,” he said, a term describing cities and towns with larger proportions of immigrant residents.
But Huang warned: “It is a tragic reality that we are at this point only at the beginning of the ramp-up of deportation actions.”
Cambridge police officials said federal agents usually notify the department when they conduct enforcement actions in the city. Asked whether police knew of the cars and agents seen here Friday, police spokesperson Robert Reardon said Monday that the department “was not made aware of any Ice operations in the city on Friday, nor do we have any information on these vehicles.”
If you see Ice
When Councillor Ayesha Wilson asked what residents should do if they see Ice agents or vehicles in the city, Elow said they should call 911 or the police nonemergency phone number. (Luce also wants calls at (617) 370-5023.)
Police “hope that [agents] let us know first, but if people see [Ice agents] we want to know,” Elow said. “We’d like to see where they are and see if we can get any information on what sort of operations they’re engaged in.”
Vice mayor Marc McGovern suggested that some reports of Ice vehicles might not be accurate. His son called him to report that Ice was outside the restaurant where the son worked, but the Ice vehicle turned out to be a large, rented SUV, McGovern said.
A photograph of one of three Ice cars reported in Cambridge on Friday clearly bore the federal agency’s logo.
The city will consider posting information it knows about Ice activities in Cambridge, Huang said after councillor Burhan Azeem suggested it. Several other councillors supported the idea.
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Gestapo tactics and rule by terror.
Please post the info on the city website so that concerned citizens can be aware… undue presence of these violent jackbooted agents of Trump and the Bounty Hunters that work with them is a cause of Anxiety for ALL residents of the city since they believe they can enter ANY business or Home without a warrant and are known in other cities for breaking in and causing property damage, a concern to all property owners and their tenants. Adding warnings of their actions and blocking of traffic etc, thru the city email/phone alert system would also be of value.