Boston Mayor Compares ICE to Neo-Nazi Group: 'There Are Other Groups That Routinely Wear Masks'

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu compared immigration agents to members of NSC 131, a New England-based neo-Nazi group.

"I don't know of any police department that routinely wears masks," Wu said Wednesday. "We know that there are other groups that routinely wear masks, NSC 131 routinely wears masks," she added, referencing Nationalist Social Club-131, a neo-Nazi organization founded in Massachusetts in 2019.

Wu, a vocal critic of President Donald Trump and his administration, made her comments in response to criticism from Leah Foley, the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts. Foley, a Trump appointee confirmed in January, accused the Boston mayor of spreading "false narratives" about federal agents.

The dispute stemmed from Wu's remarks, made last week, about Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations, which she said had "terrified" her constituents. Wu previously told WBUR people were being "snatched off the street by secret police who are wearing masks, who can offer no justification for why certain people are being taken and then detained."

Foley labeled Wu's comments "reckless and inflammatory," and defended ICE agents' masks, asserting they and their families were being "threatened, doxxed, and assaulted" in social media posts.

When asked to respond to Foley's comments, Wu pointed out that Boston police work "without wearing masks, displaying their badges publicly, with body cameras that document the interactions that take place with full transparency, because we have nothing to hide," according to the Boston Globe, before comparing ICE agents to the neo-Nazi group members.

"We see what's happening with our own eyes. A land ruled by fear is not the land of the free," Wu wrote in a Bluesky post Thursday, accompanied by the Boston Globe article referencing Foley's comments.

Federal officials held a press conference earlier this week to tout their monthlong operation that resulted in the arrests of nearly 1,500 undocumented Americans, according to Boston.com, marking one of the largest ICE operations ever.