Cambridge Cannot Bar Hiring of Former ICE Agents, City Solicitor Says

City Solicitor Megan B. Bayer advised the Cambridge City Council that a proposed rule to bar the police department from hiring former federal immigration agents would be illegal, seven months after the Council first floated the idea.

Bayer wrote in a memo presented during Monday’s Council meeting that, under state civil service law, the city cannot refuse to hire a candidate solely on the basis of “an applicant’s employment history with ICE.”

Bayer clarified that if an applicant committed misconduct or engaged in activity “that raises legitimate concerns about the applicant’s character or fitness for duty” while employed by a federal immigration agency, the city can reject the applicant on those grounds.

To deny an applicant, Bayer wrote, the Cambridge Police Department “must conduct an independent, impartial, and reasonably thorough investigation, and the reasons must be sufficiently supported by documentation and testimony rather than based on speculation or bias.”

She added that this gives the city “the ability to not hire an applicant who took part in illegal and violent immigration enforcement efforts,” though it cannot categorically bar all former federal immigration officers.

The Council placed the report on file Monday without discussion.

The original policy order, passed by the Council in February, called on City Manager Yi-An Huang ’05 to work with city staff and assess whether such a hiring restriction could be imposed, and to “report back to the City Council in a timely manner.”

Most City Council policy orders direct the city manager’s office to carry out a request or assess the feasibility of a proposal. City staff, or Huang himself, then report back to the Council on adopted orders.

In this case, the report effectively rules out the blanket hiring restriction the Council contemplated.

When first presenting the order in February, Councilor Jivan G. Sobrinho-Wheeler, a co-sponsor, said the initiative came in response to the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, arguing that the deaths showed federal immigration-enforcement tactics were at odds with the city’s values.

“It was clear to myself and many others watching those videos, if it hadn’t already been clear, that the violence that ICE is perpetrating has nothing to do with law enforcement, and the methods that ICE agents are being trained in should have no place in city government, either in Cambridge or in any other city,” Sobrinho-Wheeler said.

The Council’s initial draft of the order would have barred CPD from hiring federal immigration officers sworn in after Jan. 20, 2025, the day President Donald Trump began his second term. The order was amended by Councilor Ayah A. Al-Zubi ’23 to remove the date restriction, extending the proposal to any sworn officer previously hired by ICE, Homeland Security Investigations, or U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Two weeks after the Council passed the order, then-Commissioner Christine A. Elow told The Crimson that she did not know of anyone in the department who had previously worked for a federal agency. Elow added that officers moving from federal positions to municipal departments is uncommon.

—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.