{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/markey-continues-pressure-on-boston-ice-field-office-to-answer-for-continued-new-england-deportation-regime", "Markey Continues Pressure on Boston ICE Field Office to Answer for Continued New England Deportation Regime", "2026-08-06", "2026", "2026-08", "Democrat", "Senate", "MA", "Edward J. Markey", "M000133", "www.markey.senate.gov", "markey", "https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases", "scraper", "Letter to ICE (PDF) | ICE Response to December 2025 Letter (PDF)\n\nWashington (August 6, 2026) - Today, Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) again demanded answers from David Wesling, Acting Field Office Director for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Boston Field Office, after receiving an incomplete response from ICE to his December 17, 2025, letter that was sent following the Senator\u2019s inspection of the Burlington field office.\n\nIn the new letter released today, Senator Markey again asked ICE to address his concerns over the inhumane conditions, overcrowding, prolonged detention, lack of adequate access to medical care and legal counsel, and other poor treatment of detainees at the Burlington ICE field office facility. He highlighted how ICE\u2019s response effectively acknowledged severe overcrowding at the Burlington field office and conceded violations of its own prolonged-detention policies. Senator Markey further inquired about ICE\u2019s arrest of minors and enforcement activity at sensitive locations, use of excessive force, officer misconduct, and insufficient vetting of new hires.\n\nIn today\u2019s letter, Senator Markey wrote, \u201cICE claimed that a \u2018statistical reporting hold\u2019 blocked it from identifying the number of individuals processed at the field office in 2025 who committed violent crimes. Meanwhile, public reporting indicates that only 2% of individuals arrested during an enforcement surge in Massachusetts in September 2025 had violent convictions. And the data ICE provided for 2026 arrests appears misleading, as ICE noted that it deems illegal entry sufficient grounds for arrest and that an individual need not commit any additional crimes\u2014violent or not\u2014to be subject to removal. Moreover, ICE\u2019s response suggests that out of all the individuals it arrested with criminal convictions, a mere 15 percent were convicted of an offense ICE labeled as \u201cserious.\u201d It is imperative that ICE admit the extent of the Trump administration\u2019s falsehoods by turning over the rest of the requested arrest data.\u201d\n\nSenator Markey continued, \u201cI am also seeking information related to ICE\u2019s harmful, nontransparent operation of the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (\u201cISAP\u201d)\u2014an alternative to detention program\u2014in the Commonwealth. ICE\u2019s website contains very little information about the program or the nongovernment contractors involved, despite perturbing incidents at these facilities that demand transparency into these contractors\u2019 activities. Massachusetts residents deserve to know who is operating ISAP and what guardrails are in place to prevent nongovernment contractors from violating their rights.\u201d\n\nSenator Markey requested answers by August 19, 2026, to questions including:\n\nWhat is the nature of the conditions that individuals processed at the ICE field office in Burlington are held under?\n\nWhat are the field office\u2019s policies and procedures regarding the medical care of detainees?\n\nWhat are the field office\u2019s policies and procedures related to detainee access to interpretive services, their support systems, and legal counsel?\n\nWhat is the nature of the arrests of individuals processed at the field office?\n\nSince January 2025, how many minors (i.e., individuals under the age of eighteen) has ICE arrested in the Boston area of responsibility?\n\nOn July 28, Senator Markey led 11 colleagues in writing to Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, DHS Secretary Mullin, and Defense Secretary Hegseth demanding to know whether the Trump administration plans to deploy armed federal law enforcement officers at polling sites during the November 2026 elections, an escalation of the Administration\u2019s assault on free and fair elections that is clearly meant to intimidate voters.\n\nOn July 17, Senator Markey conducted an official unscheduled oversight visit at the ICE field office in Scarborough, Maine, where he demanded answers about the recent, nearby shooting and killing of 26-year-old Johan Sebasti\u00e1n Guerrero by an ICE officer.\n\nOn July 16, Senator Markey and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote to the ICE Boston Field Office in Burlington, Massachusetts, demanding a full, transparent, and independent accounting of this killing, given the office\u2019s direct jurisdiction over enforcement operations in Maine and New England.\n\nIn January, Senator Markey wrote to ICE Boston Acting Field Office Director David Wesling, demanding answers about conditions at the ICE field office in Burlington, Massachusetts, and the conduct of ICE agents in the Commonwealth. This letter followed Senator Markey\u2019s previous December letter to Acting Director Wesling, raising concerns about the cruel conditions at the Burlington field office.\n\n###", 1, "2026-08-07T06:11:19Z", "2026-08-07T06:12:42Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/markey-continues-pressure-on-boston-ice-field-office-to-answer-for-continued-new-england-deportation-regime"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.2911581434309483, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}