Federal immigration officials in Lowell, Mass., about 32 miles north of Boston, raided a roofing company on Monday, rounding up 11 workers. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a press release Monday that workers for an unnamed Massachusetts-based roofing business were arrested at a staging area for the company.

The agency said ICE worked with Homeland Security Investigations special agents and ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations to target the business’s “alleged unauthorized hiring practices.” ICE declined to name the company or any of the people arrested. 

According to NBC affiliate WBTS-TV in Boston, undercover ICE agents also arrested five additional individuals in East Boston. 

An ICE spokesperson stated, “the operation in East Boston is still ongoing; For officer safety, ICE does not comment on ongoing operations.”

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Ongoing Crackdowns in Beantown

Massachusetts has experienced an increase in ICE arrests following the federal government's focus on Boston's "sanctuary” policies, which include several notable arrests. 

President Trump’s “border czar,” Tom Homan, verbally assailed Boston’s police commissioner Michael Cox, in February during a speech at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland, saying he’s ‘bringing hell’ to Boston. 

In his remarks, as first reported by the The Boston Globe, Homan alleged that Boston police released “nine child rapists” instead of “honoring an ICE detainer.”

Cox, commissioner since 2022, told WCVB’s “On the Record” that the BPD’s rules include not enforcing civil detainers regarding federal immigration law.

That imbroglio followed the detention of a woman and her teen daughter in Worcester last weekend. Hundreds gathered to protest against ICE’s actions in the city. In New Bedford, ICE smashed a car window to detain a man with no criminal record. He was released a month later.

In April, a man was detained by ICE outside a Boston courthouse amidst his jury trial. 

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In one of the country’s most widely reported cases of ICE agents using aggressive tactics, Tufts University graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk, who was grabbed off the street in Somerville by federal agents not wearing identification that was broadcast nationwide, was finally released from detention after being arrested — ostensibly — due to a pro-Palestinian op-ed in a student paper.

Gov. Maura Healey addressed the immigration crackdown on Boston Public Radio earlier this month, including the arrest of the Worcester mother. She called “the lack of due process” in Öztürk’s case “fundamentally wrong,” but emphasized that Massachusetts is not a sanctuary state.

“Law enforcement can, must and should work together to investigate and apprehend those who are committing criminal activities,” Healey told The Globe, adding that “some of what I’ve seen when I look at the actions of ICE around the country is really disturbing and problematic.”