ICEy Relations: A Tale of Two Cities

‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.’

~ Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities

Ah, again with the literary parallels, only in this instance I’m going to tell you about Boston and Houston.

Both cities are varying shades of progressive blue – cocooned by its New England neighbors, Boston’s azure hue is much deeper than the other port city nestled on the edge of a beating red Texas heart. Democrats dominate the city council landscape in both. As does fiery language over the Trump administration’s reversal of the illegal alien-friendly policies of the Biden era, and its determination to remove as many of the invaders from the country as possible. The promise to the American people to do so was a central tenet of Trump’s campaign and still enjoys enormous popular support.

It offends progressives, even though the Trump administration is simply enforcing existing federal immigration law that the lawless Biden administration chose to ignore. It has done so in spite of myriad repetitive and frivolous court challenges by enforcement opponents, all of which the Trump administration has complied with until they were subsequently overturned.

Which they have been.

The immigration enforcement rolls on, much to the frustration of progressives and Democrats, who are throwing increasingly more violent and fruitless tantrums as the supposed legal basis for objecting is routinely stripped away.

This is what happens when you act within the scope of your authority. 

This is what happens when progressives get told ‘No.’

They continue making their own #rulez. This was the mayor of Boston this past February.

Mayor Wu says if an ICE agent were to come to your home that you should call 911 and her police force will show up and handle it pic.twitter.com/vhZwKUxjVw

— Mass Daily News (@MassDailyNews) April 14, 2026

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is an uber-prog. A smack-talking resistance fighter from the Southside of Chicago, Wu joined the elite Ivy League set after she went to Harvard for college and decided she’d found her tribe. She’s never left.

Wu is also a fierce defender of illegal immigrants, while seemingly not as enthusiastic about regular, white Bostonian types. There’s nothing she loves more than picking a good fight with the Bad Orange Man. She tries to do this as often as possible, and immigration issues make it easy.

Mayor Michelle Wu stood together with mayors and city managers from neighboring municipalities to give an update on how the City of Boston and neighboring municipalities are taking steps to address unconstitutional federal operations. She was joined at the event by Cambridge City Manager Yi-An Huang, Chelsea City Manager Fidel Maltez, Lynn Mayor Jared Nicholson, Newton Mayor Marc C. Laredo, and Somerville Mayor Jake Wilson. 

Shortly before the event, Mayor Wu signed An Executive Order To Protect Bostonians From Unconstitutional and Violent Federal Operations, which provides direction to City officials on how to protect residents from illegal federal overreach, prioritizing de-escalation, and reaffirms that Boston will hold anyone accountable who commits violence, property damage, or any criminal conduct in the City, including federal officials.

“Boston stands in solidarity with communities across the region to protect our residents amid the attacks of a reckless and dangerous federal administration,” said Mayor Michelle Wu. “Our City will take every action to de-escalate, ensure safety, and protect the people of Boston.”

As of the first of this year, the Trump administration was eyeing its third attempt to cut off funding to sanctuary cities and states (a CA judge has shut down the previous plans). Boston and Massachusetts both qualify.

Boston and other sanctuary cities across the U.S. are once again being targeted by Donald Trump, with the president announcing this week that he wants to cut federal funding not only to those cities but also to their states — starting next month.

…“We’re not making any payments to sanctuary cities or states having sanctuary cities, because they do everything possible to protect criminals at the expense of American citizens and it breeds fraud and crime and all of the other problems that come,” he said. “So we’re not making any payment to anybody that supports sanctuary cities.”

…There is no strict definition for sanctuary policies or sanctuary cities, but the terms generally describe cities and or jurisdictions that do not fully cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Boston is one of those cities.

NBC10 Boston has reached out to Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey for statements on Trump’s comments about freezing funding for sanctuary cities but has yet to hear back.

Undaunted in the face of the federal threat, and already under the cloud of a $100M budget hole, Wu carried on, carrying on about illegals to the detriment of Bostonians. Even those trying to do the city’s business.

Just ten days after Mayor Michelle Wu handed out $4.4 million for illegal immigrant lawyers and groceries, she announced City Hall can’t afford staplers.

The mayor unveiled an emergency spending freeze Thursday on office supplies, travel, and building repairs through June, citing rising energy costs and snow removal expenses as the city faces a budget crunch.

The timing raised eyebrows. As Mass Daily News reported on March 10, Wu partnered with philanthropic organizations to direct millions toward deportation lawyers, mental health counseling, and groceries for immigrants — while homeowners facing a 13% property tax increase footed the bill.

The memo to department heads was blunt: All spending frozen for transportation, travel, food supplies, office supplies, furniture, and equipment through fiscal year end June 30. Building repairs and equipment service slashed 50%.

City departments must “limit overtime spending to non-discretionary duties.” No staplers. No conferences. No catered meetings.

Progressive political priorities are never the people who pay for them, especially when these elected officials are safely tucked within a geographical bastion of woke, comforting, equally as rabid progressives as far as the eye can see.

While the meter is running up one helluva tab, the bill for their virtue-signaling indulgences has yet to come due.

In Houston, things went a little differently.

The mayor there, John Whitmire, a longtime Democrat and former state senator, was proud to join the Houston City Council as they voted to rewrite the #rulez on how the Houston Police Department would be dealing with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (aka ICE) from that point forward.

The city council came up with pretty radical policy changes.

“The policy now specifies that HPD officers cannot hold someone longer or extend a stop to wait for ice before officers were required to give immigration authorities 30 minutes to respond”

Full changes include

– HPD officers cannot prolong a traffic stop, investigation or detention to wait for ICE

– An ICE administrative warrant does not justify extending a detention or stop

– Eliminates a policy that required officers to wait up to 30 minutes for ICE to respond to a civil immigration warrant

‘YAY!’ said Mayor Whitmire. ‘We sure told them.’

In which Houston’s mayor tries (and fails) to figure out how not to draw the ire of Donald Trump, Greg Abbott, or Ken Paxton after letting his city council reinstate sanctuary city-style limits on police officers.

Illegal aliens will be flocking to Houston. https://t.co/F45m5SCRFs

— Michael Quinn Sullivan 🇺🇸 (@MQSullivan) April 8, 2026

This is where Houston’s story diverges from Boston’s. Whereas MA Governor Maura Healey is completely on board with the tune Michelle Wu warbles, Texas Governor Greg Abbott did not care for the song Houston was singing the very second he heard the first few notes.

And he let them know, posthaste, in a note that said ‘Correct yourselves immediately, or else.’

When they didn’t, Daddy Abbott snapped the wallet shut just that fast and cut the naughty port city’s allowance off.

Millions of dollars in public safety funding have been frozen for Houston following a recent change in the city’s immigration policy, according to city officials.

Houston Mayor John Whitmire’s office confirmed the update to ABC13 on Tuesday, saying the state had froze nearly $115 million in public safety funding. During a meeting, Whitmire added that some services by the Houston Police Department had been halted as a result of Gov. Greg Abbott’s actions.

“This is serious business affecting every Houstonian,” Whitmire said. “Every Houstonian, and our region. It was public safety this time. In a couple of days, it’ll be public health.”

This comes after the city was warned to change or repeal its new immigration policy or risk losing the funds.

Abbott’s office sent the warning in a letter on Monday, escalating tensions between state and local leaders just days after the Houston City Council passed a controversial ordinance defining how police interact with federal immigration authorities.

D’OH!

Yesterday, the mayor put out a panicked, kind of self-serving statement that basically said – after an initial OMG WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO? – he told those people not to pass the ordinance, but they did anyway, WAAH, not his fault!

This is the guy who was taking a victory lap over ‘not being ICE’, not 48 hours before, remember. Profile in progressive courage he’s not.

Statement from @houmayor John Whitmire:

Last week, I voted for the revised “Prop A” Ordinance on Immigration believing it affirmed our original policy: Houston enforces state and local law-not federal law, and we are not ICE. However, Governor Abbott disagrees.

Read full… pic.twitter.com/ahbkCF47sb

— City of Houston (@HoustonTX) April 13, 2026

And by late yesterday afternoon? 

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE

A complete and total collapse of Whitmire’s short-lived rebellious stage.

Mayor John Whitmire last week joined his City Council colleagues in voting to limit Houston police officers’ interactions with federal immigration agents, but now says the city must repeal the policy after Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to pull $110 million in public safety grants.

“We’ve got to correct that policy,” Whitmire said after a Tuesday press conference. “And it does not matter what a council member’s legal opinion is. There’s only one opinion that matters, and that’s the governor’s.”

The mayor has called a special council meeting Friday to vote on whether to repeal the new policy, which eliminated Houston’s prior requirement that officers wait 30 minutes for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to pick up someone with a civil immigration warrant. 

Abbott’s public safety director told Whitmire in a Monday letter that Houston was out of compliance with its agreement for state grant funds and must revoke the policy by April 20 or repay the funds. An Abbott spokesman said late Tuesday the governor’s office also is “looking into allegations that other cities may be in violation of their contract with the state.”

The cash at risk includes $65 million to protect World Cup events, $21 million in federal funds for “high-threat, high-density areas,” $16 million to counter the unlawful use of drones, and $10 million for equipment, according to a city document.

It’s amazing what a quick fiscal reality check can do as far as a rapid attitude adjustment.

Now, that’s not to say there aren’t rational, similar voices being raised in deeply progressive states that the course their elected officials are charting is madness from the start.

One outstanding assemblywoman in the New Jersey House, God bless her, was apoplectic with frustration over the Democrat members’ sanctuary state legislative virtue signaling.

New Jersey Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia LOSES IT on Democrats passing illegal immigration laws

“For the love of God and all that is good. Can you differentiate between the fact that we don’t make laws that control the federal government? My God, what are we doing here? I’m not a… pic.twitter.com/oywzt9Ck5s

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) April 15, 2026

…I’m not a lawyer. I was an English teacher and I comprehend that my fifth grade middle school English students would understand it.

I am coming to you not from a point of ideology because I know in the minority party, we already lost that argument. You guys are way, way out in the ether with that. I’m not even hoping to win the ideology. I’m hoping to win the logical argument to say, why do we keep passing laws that are gonna end up in court? We lose and the taxpayer gets shafted over and over and over. 

You cannot vote yes for a law that controls local, county, state, and federal. No, Federal has gotta come off for this to count, but the only reason why you’re passing it is to affect federal agents —  WHAT don’t a room full of lawyers understand. Ludicrous. Oh my goodness”

The Democrats in the NJ House couldn’t wait for her to sit down and stuff a sock in it, you know?

She’s a heroine in my eyes.

Would there were more like her in the dark and despairing New Jerseys and Bostons of this country.

But I think most of them have left for redder places where, even if the blue-hearted progs get a little froggy, at least someone’s always watching to keep the foolishness under control.

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