Can one be on “solid legal ground” in helping illegal immigrants evade the consequences of their actions?

Mayor Michelle Wu seems to think so.

Wu says her administration feels “very strongly” that Boston’s ICE detainer end runs are A-OK, after she and mayors from Denver, New York and Chicago got a request to testify before the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

U.S. Rep. James Comer, R-Tenn., chair of the GOP-controlled committee, sent a letter to Wu, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston on Monday, informing them of an ongoing investigation into “sanctuary jurisdictions across the United States and their impact on public safety and the effectiveness of federal efforts to enforce the immigration laws.”

Boston’s Trust Act prohibits city police and other departments from cooperating with ICE and federal agencies on civil immigration detainers.

What does that look like? Well, earlier this month federal authorities said the Boston Police Department refused to act on 198 immigration detainer requests last year.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued the detainers to the city’s police department to request the custody transfer of 198 individuals ICE “had probable cause to believe were removable non-citizens” after they had been arrested by BPD on charges that involved “egregious criminal activity,” ICE spokesperson Yolanda Choates told the Herald.

Those charges included armed robbery, assault with a dangerous weapon, assault and battery on a police officer, possession of a firearm, possession of a large capacity weapon, assault to murder, distribution of fentanyl, trafficking of heroin, indecent assault and battery on a person 14 or older, possession with intent to distribute fentanyl, possession with intent to distribute cocaine, and trafficking over 200 grams of cocaine, per the feds’ statement.

The kind of folks sanctuary cities want to protect from big bad ICE agents.

And that’s fine with Wu and other sanctuary city leaders. “We follow the laws fully here in Boston. And at the city level, that means standing by our own municipal laws, it means standing by state laws, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court decision as well that reinforces local communities implement local laws and federal government can implement their laws,” Wu said according to CBS News.

This will likely boil down to a battle between the 10th Amendment of the Constitution (separating federal and state powers) and the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause (designating the Constitution as the “supreme law of the land.”)

But while hearings are held in D.C. and opponents face off on legal technicalities, headlines continue to fill with news of rapists, killers, child predators and drug traffickers being taken into custody by ICE.

How would keeping these people out of the reach of ICE be part of community safety?

A point that too often gets lost in the chaos: If sanctuary cities and the progressive pols who back them put their resources and energy into bolstering legal immigration and properly vetting asylum seekers, we likely wouldn’t be where we are today.

Editorial cartoon by Steve Breen (Creators Syndicate)