City Council Backs Policy to Restrict Cambridge Police Hiring of Federal Immigration Officers

The Cambridge City Council unanimously voted in support of a policy order that could bar any sworn federal immigration agent from being employed by the Cambridge Police Department — the city’s latest attempt to safeguard against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

The Monday policy order directs City Manager Yi-An Huang ’05 and city staff to “examine if and how the city may prevent” CPD from hiring any individual who had previously worked for any federal agency conducting immigration enforcement, and report back to the Council “in a timely manner.”

Councilor Jivan G. Sobrinho-Wheeler, who co-sponsored the order, said multiple fatal shootings by federal immigration enforcement agents in Minnesota prompted the policy, arguing that the incidents revealed ICE training to be “deeply at odds with our values.”

“It is clear after the killings in Minnesota. No one working for ICE should carry a gun for the city of Cambridge, and that’s what this policy order is about,” Sobrinho-Wheeler said.

The order originally would have barred Cambridge from hiring federal agents who had been sworn in after Jan. 20, 2025, the day Trump began his second term. But a last-minute amendment by Councilor Ayah A. Al-Zubi ’23 removed the timeframe restriction and imposed the restriction on any sworn federal officer, regardless of their date of appointment.

“I imagine there are actually a lot of people working at ICE right now who are doing serious soul searching over the events of the last few weeks, and it’s important to recognize that everyone is capable of reflection and change,” Sobrinho-Wheeler said.

“That’s why this policy would still allow for folks to work for the Cambridge Public Library, the Department of Public Works, the water department, and literally every other city department,” he added.

In the weeks since the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Cambridge city officials have publicly condemned ICE’s actions and enacted an executive order on Thursday that bars federal immigration enforcement activity on all city-owned and operated property.

The executive order also provides stricter guidelines for how CPD responds to federal immigration operations in the city — requiring body-worn camera and surveillance footage of immigration operations to be publicly released.

On Monday, the Council also unanimously supported a policy order to amend the city’s sanctuary city ordinance to include Huang’s executive order. The move was made to give the order further legal protection, since ordinances are more difficult to amend or overturn than executive orders, councilors said.

“This is an important step toward restricting federal immigration enforcement from using city property to terrorize our immigrant neighbors,” Al-Zubi said.

Police Commissioner Christine A. Elow also submitted a report to the Council detailing 11 interactions CPD had with federal immigration officers since last September, bringing the total number of interactions between ICE and CPD to at least 16 since the start of 2025.

Cambridge officers refused to provide information or assist federal agents in every documented case. Elow clarified that the report only includes interactions with federal immigration agencies rather than all contact with federal officers, such as a federal officer carrying out a criminal search warrant.

Al-Zubi postponed most discussion of CPD’s log to a later public safety committee meeting, asking for more time to “dig into” the details of the department’s interactions with federal agents.

—Staff writer Shawn A. Boehmer can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at shawnb.18. Follow him on X @ShawnBoehmer.

—Staff writer Claire A. Michal can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at ClaireMichal.154.