Trahan takes inspectional tour of Burlington ICE facility

BURLINGTON — Westford’s congresswoman Lori Trahan took a tour of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Burlington on Tuesday.

The congresswoman’s tour took place just weeks after a 14-year-old was detained by federal immigration officials in her district and marked her first visit to the facility since President Donald Trump took office last year. The tour was pre-scheduled with ICE, began around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday and lasted for about 90 minutes.

Following the tour, Trahan spoke to reporters outside the ICE facility and described what she experienced inside.

“This isn’t a detention facility, this is an administrative ICE enforcement facility,” Trahan said. “There were a lot of people sitting at cubicles doing investigative work, targeting individuals with criminal pasts, with deportation orders, some dating back years, to target for detention. I was told people are moved out of this facility very quickly. We talked about where people go. Men go to some places, children and women go to others. There weren’t many people in the holding cells that we just walked through. So we had a lot of questions around what happens when someone has no criminal record, what happens when someone is swept up in an operation that has no criminal wrongdoing in their past.”

Trahan has been a vocal critic of the Trump Administration’s immigration enforcement tactics and the deployment of ICE agents in communities across Massachusetts.

“This facility has been here since 2007, however the (Trump) Administration has changed the game with a massive increase in funding, hiring thousands of new (ICE) agents to fulfill his (Trump’s) mass deportation promise, sending an unprecedented number of agents into our communities,” Trahan said. “We’ve seen hardworking people, in many cases without a criminal record, being targeted and detained, often without a signed judicial warrant. They’re then transported out of state into other detention facilities as fast as possible.”

Trahan argues that ICE agents often do not follow due process when making arrests, detain immigrants as well as American citizens without a criminal record and detain children in an attempt to target their parents.

 “Nothing that I heard today changed my belief that congressional oversight of ICE enforcement must continue,” Trahan said. “Variation in how these directives are being carried out across the country is precisely why oversight cannot stop. Congress has both the authority and the responsibility to ensure that enforcement actions comply with the law and respect due process.”

Earlier this month, Trahan accused ICE agents of holding a 14-year-old Marlborough girl “hostage,” in an attempt to target her father for deportation. The incident resulted in a legal battle to get the girl returned to her family.

According to the court case, the girl was detained by ICE agents in a Marlborough parking lot and transported overnight to a detention facility in New York, where she was held until a federal judge in Boston ordered her return to Massachusetts to be reunited with her family.

During Tuesday’s press conference outside the ICE facility, WestfordCAT asked Trahan about the incident in Marlborough and the impact it had on other communities in her district.

“It is absolutely unacceptable that we arrest children when we’re targeting a parent or another family member,“ Trahan said. “Using children as bait — I look at this as not only a policymaker but as the mom of soon-to-be 12 and 16-year-old girls — I cannot imagine the fear and the anxiety and it’s just not ok for that to happen in the United States, never mind Massachusetts.“

Trahan’s visit also comes as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security continues to face a funding lapse, due to a partial government shutdown which has now entered its fifth week. The shutdown began last month after Congress failed to agree on a bill to fund DHS, with most Democrats and some Republicans voting to withhold funding in large part due to ICE immigration enforcement tactics.

In response to the ongoing funding lapse, Transportation Security Administration officers have been forced to work without pay and are experiencing staffing shortages. As of Monday, ICE agents have been deployed by DHS at airports across the country to take their place. Logan airport has not yet been targeted.

“(Trump and Republicans) are holding the entirety of DHS hostage,” Trahan said. “TSA, Coast Guardsmen and women, leading counterterrorism officials — people who are in charge of keeping us safe everyday — are having their pay and their benefits used as leverage. They are protecting an enforcement regime that this country is not behind. I know that I will not stop pushing for accountability. While I did learn a lot about this particular facility (in Burlington), I will not stop demanding answers. I think the families of Massachusetts, and frankly this country, deserve better — and I’m going to keep fighting until they get it.”

DHS Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis blamed the funding lapse on Democrats in Congress and accused them of impacting travel across the country.

“The Democrats’ reckless DHS shutdown is causing TSA officers to go without pay for the third time in nearly six months,” Bis said in a statement last week. “These political stunts are causing unneeded financial hardship for our TSA officers and their families. Now, 366 TSA officers have left the force. Because of this DHS shutdown, Americans are facing hours-long waits at airports across the country. Democrats must reopen DHS now.”

During the press conference, Trahan was also asked about Oklahoma senator Markwayne Mullin, who was confirmed by the Senate on Monday as the new Secretary of Homeland Security, replacing Kristi Noem who Trump fired earlier this month. Trahan was also very critical of Noem’s leadership, previously calling for her removal.

“I think this administration has a pretty well known track record of hiring people who are unqualified for the positions they are in,” Trahan said. “I served with Sen. Mullin for one term. He has never overseen an agency or any organization with this many people. This is the largest domestic law enforcement agency in our country. So when I look back at Sen. Mullin’s career, ”I don’t see anything that would make him qualified to run and direct this many people or the policy agenda of this president.

Protests are held every Wednesday outside the ICE facility in Burlington as part of the Bearing Witness @ ICE movement, which as stated on MA Peace Action website aims to “stand in solidarity, show love and support (to immigrant communities), while expressing shame at ICE and bearing witness to the cruel and unconstitutional actions of (Trump’s) government.”

The Westford League of Women Voters, along with Westford’s First Parish Church United and St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, have attended the protests in the past.

“Westford does have a large immigrant population and I’m sure they have been impacted by that,” League of Women Voters Treasurer and Spokesperson Vicky Geary said during a protest last fall. “Even if they haven’t been targeted, it’s the emotional aspect of this. It’s the fear. In fact, I actually know an immigrant who’d love to go see some friends in Europe, but is scared to death to leave the country, because she’s scared she might not be let back in. Even though she has a legal residence card. So even if we haven’t had that impact like some of the other communities with massive arrests, we have that population in our town, and we are a community, and we do stand up for each other, as we should.”

Also last fall, Westford Police Chief Mark Chambers spoke at a Westford League of Women Voters meeting, answering questions posed by members of the league and other meeting attendees regarding the extent that both police officers and members of the public can get involved during arrests by ICE agents.

Questions included the number of ICE arrests in Westford, the extent that both police officers and members of the public can get involved during arrests, and what rights both the agents and detainees have during and after an arrest.

“We did have one situation about two months ago (October 2025), where we had someone that had been placed under arrest for a subsequent offense while driving without a license,” Chambers said. “As part of our booking process, we take photographs and fingerprints, and the fingerprint system right now is all online, because we have to transmit the fingerprints to make sure the person’s identity is confirmed. ICE was notified through that system that we had somebody in our custody who was under an immigration detainer at the time. They asked us to hold him, we said ‘no’, they waited outside, so once he was bailed out, he walked out of the station and they did take him into custody.”