The top US immigration enforcement official and leading federal prosecutor in Massachusetts on Saturday criticized Governor Maura Healey’s demands for data on federal immigration arrests, issuing a statement that cast the governor as hypocritical.
“Isn’t it rich that the very governor who refuses to share information with federal law enforcement is now demanding information on ICE arrests?” said Todd M. Lyons, the top executive at US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Massachusetts US Attorney Leah Foley in a joint statement.
“She forgets that being in the country illegally is, in fact, illegal,” they said.
The statement from Lyons, a South Boston native, and Foley, a Republican named US attorney last year, responded to a letter Healey, a Democrat, sent Friday to top immigration officials in the Trump administration seeking “complete and accurate information” about all the people ICE has arrested in Massachusetts since January of last year.
“You have repeatedly claimed that ICE is targeting the ‘worst of the worst,’” Healey wrote in the letter, addressed to outgoing US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Lyons.
“But even by ICE’s own account, the facts tell a very different story,” Healey wrote. “Many of those taken into custody are longstanding members of our communities — parents, caregivers, and workers whose sudden detention leaves their families in crisis.”
On Saturday, a Healey spokesperson asked why federal immigration authorities haven’t provided more information about people arrested in Massachusetts.
“If ICE is so confident that they are only arresting criminals, why are they refusing to release information about those arrests?” said Karissa Hand, the spokesperson. “It’s because they know that the majority of those they have arrested have no criminal background.”
The crackdown has left a “far-reaching” impact on Massachusetts families, Healey wrote in her letter.
Of the 1,461 arrests made in May 2025 as part of “Operation Patriot,” 671 of them, or 46 percent, had “no criminal background whatsoever,” Healey wrote.
Another surge came in September, when ICE arrested 1,406 people in the state, she said.
“By ICE’s account and reporting by the New York Times, it is clear that more than 60 percent of individuals arrested by ICE in Massachusetts during the September surge” also had no criminal history, Healey wrote.
Lyons and Foley said the more than 2,860 people in Massachusetts arrested during those operations had violated US federal immigration law and many had entered the country during the administration of former president Joseph R. Biden.
They accused Healey of using her position to “smear ICE” and “bully” businesses that do business with the agency and urged her to work with the Trump administration to protect US citizens from undocumented immigrations who have committed criminal offenses.
“The majority of those had committed serious crimes in the United States or their native countries,” they said. “Most were released due to local and state jurisdictions refusing to cooperate with ICE.”
They added: “Why does Governor Healey wish to impede ICE from removing criminal illegal aliens from the Bay State?”
Healey, a former prosecutor, said ICE has provided “limited public information” about 30 people detained in September.
She said the federal agency has provided no information about “the many others” ICE has arrested between and since those two operations.
“In too many cases, children return home from school to find that a parent has been detained, with no information about where they have been taken or whether they will be able to return,” Healey wrote.
She said she’s “demanding” that the Trump administration provide state officials with the identity of every person arrested by ICE since January 2025.
She also wants to know the legal basis for those arrests; the status of each case, including docket numbers, the location where someone’s being held, which court is hearing the case, and the next scheduled hearing. Also, the number of ICE arrests involving parents or main caregivers for minor children, and “any and all” ICE protocols to protect children when a parent or guardian is detained.
“The people of Massachusetts are entitled to complete and accurate information,” Healey said. “I ask that you provide this information in one week. I await your prompt response.”
When the September surge was ramping up in Massachusetts, DHS, which oversees ICE, said the agency was “arresting sex offenders, pedophiles, murderers, drug dealers, and gang members released by local authorities.”
“Their prioritization of criminal aliens in communities across the state should speak volumes to their constituents,” Lyons said in June, referring to Healey and Mayor Michelle Wu, who has also been critical of ICE. “As these elected officials welcome those flouting national laws, ICE’s brave law enforcement officers protecting public safety will continue to perform the job they refuse to do.”
In a statement Monday, a DHS spokesperson said 70 percent of people “ICE arrested across the country have criminal convictions or pending criminal charges just in the U.S. This statistic doesn’t account for those wanted for violent crimes in their home country or another country, INTERPOL notices, human rights abusers, gang members, terrorists, etc. The list goes on. Our officers are preventing violence in Massachusetts by arresting these murderers, pedophiles, and rapists across the state.”
Material from prior Globe stories and from Globe wire services was used in this report.
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com. Laura Crimaldi can be reached at laura.crimaldi@globe.com. Follow her @lauracrimaldi.