Wu fiercely defends Boston's immigration policy at congressional hearing

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu — alongside her mayoral counterparts from Denver, New York City and Chicago — testified in front of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to defend Boston’s immigration enforcement policies.

All four mayors have been targeted by the Republican-led committee about so-called “sanctuary city” policies, which GOP lawmakers say are illegal and put people at risk. 

There’s no official definition of a “sanctuary city,” but Boston’s Trust Act places restrictions on local police cooperation with ICE officials. Mayor Wu defended that act in her testimony Wednesday, saying Boston is a welcoming place for immigrants. 

GBH’s Adam Reilly attended the hearing in Washington and joined GBH’s All Things Considered host Arun Rath to share notable moments between Wu and lawmakers. What follows is a lightly edited transcript.

Arun Rath: This was about as high profile as it gets. How did it go for Mayor Wu today?

Adam Reilly: It was incredibly high profile. The press aide who was escorting a bunch of us in said that in all his years doing this, he’d never seen the amount of out-of-town media attention that he was seeing for this particular hearing.

I thought Mayor Wu had a really strong performance. These hearings are grueling affairs; they go on for hours. Today was about six hours long. The questioning from half of the room for the panelists — like Mayor Wu — is extremely hostile. There’s always the risk that if you say the wrong thing at the wrong moment, you’re going to go viral in a really destructive way. Remember Claudine Gay, the former president of Harvard. She testified about antisemitism back in late 2023 and what she said and what she didn’t say ended up costing her her job.

But Wu’s performance was really different. She got to spend a lot of time touting Boston’s public safety record, which is something she’s extremely proud of. She actually generated a handful of moments that made her look really good — at least, for people who agree with her politics and share her worldview.

Rath: Let’s talk about some of those. As you mentioned, there’s a handful; there wasn’t just one. Start us off with one example of where Mayor Wu responded better to hostile questioning.

Reilly: Let me give you an example, first off, of where she got questioning from a friendly interrogator, Gerry Connolly of Virginia. This was near the start of the hearing, and I want to begin there because I think it really set the tone for Wu’s performance for the day.

Gerry Connolly is the ranking Democrat on the committee. He asked Mayor Wu about comments that Tom Homan — the Trump administration’s so-called border czar — made at the Conservative Political Action Conference recently. As you probably remember, Homan accused Boston police of actively impeding federal immigration enforcement. He said he was coming to Boston and “bringing hell” with him.

When Connolly asked Wu about this, here’s what she had to say.

Mayor Michelle Wu, pre-recorded: Let’s talk about Tom Homan. Shame on him for lying about my city, for having the nerve to insult our police commissioner, who has overseen the safest Boston’s been in anyone’s lifetime. Bring him here under oath, and let’s ask him some questions.

I am here to make sure that the city of Boston is safe. Others may want to bring hell. We are here to bring peace to cities everywhere.

Rath: Well, that was a strong don’t-mess-with-Boston response to a friendly questioner who teed that up for her. How did she do with more hostile questioners?

Reilly: She did surprisingly well. Again, in part, because these hostile questioners frequently just talk over the people testifying — the people who they’ve called to speak to that they won’t even let answer.

But there were several moments where Wu took hostile questioning and turned it right back on the questioner in a way that kind of set them back on their feet. That seemed to take the wind out of their sails. She basically won the exchanges.

Take a listen to this back-and-forth between Wu and Rep. Paul Gosar, the extremely conservative Republican congressman from Arizona.

Rep. Paul Gosar, pre-recorded: We just heard, “We want a comprehensive immigration policy.” How can you get a comprehensive immigration policy when you’re defying it from the very get-go? You’re building it on false premises and false tenets.

Mayor Wu, pre-recorded: Respectfully, Congressman, you could pass bipartisan legislation, and that would be comprehensive immigration law. The false narrative is that immigrants, in general, are criminals or immigrants, in general, cause all sorts of danger and harm.

That is actually what is undermining safety in our communities. If you wanted to make us safe, pass gun reforms. Stop cutting Medicaid. Stop cutting cancer research. Stop cutting funds for veterans. That is what will make our cities safe.

Rath: Wow. I mean, really holding her own and sticking up there. Adam, I just want to ask you as sort of an aside — for those of us who have just heard this — what was it like, visually, that scene of Gosar with Mayor Wu? What was it like in the room?

Reilly: You know, these things are always more electric when you’re in the room. … It’s almost like there’s a barometric pressure that you feel as momentum shifts or someone gets the upper hand. It was a moment that I will remember. It was something to see in person.

Rath: So, some high points — did Mayor Wu have any difficult moments?

Reilly: There was one moment that stood out to me, in the moment. Nancy Mace, the Republican congresswoman from South Carolina, tried to paint Wu as inconsistent or even duplicitous when it comes to how she talks and feels about the work that’s done by ICE, or Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Let’s take a listen, and then I’ll tell you why the moment wasn’t quite as bad as it sounds at first listen.

Rep. Nancy Mace, pre-recorded: Do you believe that ICE arresting a child rapist “threatens everyone’s safety” — yes or no?

Wu, pre-recorded: No.

Mace, pre-recorded: Does ICE arresting a murderous MS-13 gang member threaten everyone’s safety — yes or no?

Wu, pre-recorded: No.

Mace, pre-recorded: I would like to hold up this quote of you, where you say: [ICE]’s efforts “actually threaten the safety of everyone.” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, you’re a hypocrite. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Reilly: That’s sort of the tenor of the really hostile questioning, but it turns out that comes with a huge caveat. Mace took comments that Wu made, I think, about mass deportation, actually, and she extremely selectively edited them so it sounded like she was talking about ICE in general.

So, as far as intellectual honesty goes, I think it is not on Nancy Mace’s side in that exchange. Now, that won’t make people who were cheering for Nance Mace any less pumped about that exchange. But to me, it makes the “gotcha” moment resonate a lot less than it did at first.

Rath: It’s also interesting, Adam, listening to that, that Mayor Wu didn’t fall into that trap — one might call it that — that Claudine Gay did to that yes-or-no question of just saying, “Well, no, arresting a rapist isn’t a problem.”

Reilly: Yeah. I don’t want to get, you know … I don’t want to digress too much, but one thing that I wondered, going into this hearing [was how] Mayor Wu has a tendency to preface many of the comments she makes with very long, nuanced, subtle, complex setups.

I think that’s because she’s very bright; she’s very thoughtful. She’s a trained attorney. That [approach] doesn’t necessarily work in an environment like the one she was in today. Her answers today were incredibly direct, terse, aggressive, concise, and I think that played to her advantage in a big way.

Rath: What did she have to say after?

Reilly: She seemed pleased with how things had gone, but I wouldn’t say triumphal. She seemed really excited to be getting back to Boston. She actually made this trip with her husband and their new baby who spent at least some time in the hearing room watching her mom be grilled and give some of the answers that we just heard.

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Interestingly, there was one Republican today — Representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida — who said that she was going to suggest that the Department of Justice think about criminally prosecuting Wu and the other mayors who spoke for defying federal law. When Wu was asked about that, she really didn’t sound too fazed by that prospect.

Wu, pre-recorded: I think — as we heard throughout the many hours of testimony today — Boston follows the laws, and I’m happy and will make sure that my team continues to follow up with this committee to get them any other information they need to follow up from this hearing.