Boston City Councilor Sharon Durkan said she’s been attacked mercilessly and fat-shamed online after posting a defiant response to border czar Tom Homan’s vow to bring “hell” to the sanctuary city over its lack of cooperation with ICE.

Durkan, an ally of Mayor Michelle Wu who is set to testify on the city’s sanctuary policies and their impact on public safety at a Congressional oversight hearing next week, drew intense backlash after reposting a video of Homan’s remarks about Boston last weekend. Her post directed an insult at the border czar’s law enforcement background.

At last Wednesday’s City Council meeting, Durkan became visibly emotional over the experience, and questioned whether she would have been “attacked” so intensely by the public had she been a male politician making similar remarks.

“My actual experience being a woman in office is very different from the strides that we’ve seen,” Durkan said. “Obviously, the past three days I have been attacked by thousands of people online who have called me fat, who have just attacked me to my core, looked up where I went to high school, did sort of horrible things.

“And I just have to ask myself if those comments would happen if I was a man,” Durkan, a Georgia native, added. “I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but the reality is, being a woman on the City Council and being a woman elected official is very, very, very different from being a male elected official.”

She went to say that, “Even if you can rise to the top, people are waiting for you to fall, and they’re waiting and they’re critical. I’ve had men come up to me at events that said you should really wear black more, because you just don’t have the body type to wear pink. It’s disgusting.”

Durkan’s comments came amid discussion around a Council resolution recognizing March as Women’s History Month. Her remarks were responsive to the backlash she said she’s received for a social media post she made a day after Homan’s fiery speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C.

In his speech, Homan vowed to bring “hell” to the sanctuary city of Boston and slammed Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox for becoming “a politician” and the department’s limited cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

“I read a story last night that the Boston police commissioner, you said you’d double down on not helping law enforcement officers of ICE,” Homan said last Saturday. “I’m coming to Boston and I’m bringing hell with me.”

Homan added of Cox, “You’re not a police commissioner. Take that badge off your chest, put it in the desk drawer because you became a politician. You forgot what it’s like to be a cop.”

In Durkan’s X post, which has nearly a quarter-million views, more than 1,200 comments and hundreds of likes and shares, the city councilor said it was “laughable that someone who spent their career policing a town smaller than a Fenway Park crowd thinks they can lecture Boston on public safety.”

“Commissioner Michael Cox serves with distinction and earns trust with integrity,” Durkan wrote on X last Sunday. “Tom Homan should know, we don’t scare easy.”

Prior to being designated “border czar” by President Donald Trump, Homan was a police officer in West Carthage, a New York village with a population of less than 2,000, for about a year before becoming a federal border patrol agent.

Homan was a top immigration official in the Obama administration, and was appointed acting director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by President Trump in 2017.

He retired from that position a year later and was designated border czar by Trump following his November 2024 election to a second term.

Durkan, seemingly responding to comments on her post about Homan’s background, acknowledged his law enforcement experience in a follow-up post on X last Sunday, but doubled down on her criticism of the border czar.

“Yes, I understand that Tom Homan spent his career as a federal agent within Border Patrol and ICE, but that’s a world away from the realities of policing a major city,” Durkan wrote. “His background is in immigration enforcement, not community policing — where trust and accountability are key.”

Related Articles

Boston Mayoral Poll: Michelle Wu and Josh Kraft 43-29 in first head-to-head survey

After Uber driver allegedly raped passenger, Boston city councilor pushes for police to ‘register and fingerprint drivers’

‘Game on’: Congressional oversight committee drops video ahead of sanctuary hearing featuring Boston

‘All hell’ at congressional panel Boston Mayor Wu is set to go before next week

Amid uptick in downtown crime, Boston Mayor Wu unveils plan to clean up Mass and Cass spillover

Durkan, who worked for Wu prior to being elected as a city councilor, is a staunch ally of the progressive mayor, who is expected to be grilled next Wednesday by a Republican-led Congressional oversight committee.

The committee is “investigating sanctuary jurisdictions across the United States, and their impact on public safety and the effectiveness of federal efforts to enforce the immigration laws of the United States,” per a letter from its chair James Comer.

Wu bashed Homan’s comments last weekend as “foolish,” while defending the city’s police commissioner and public safety record.

She is set to join three other sanctuary city mayors from Chicago, Denver and New York City for testimony at the D.C. hearing.