The Boston City Council voted down Councilor Ed Flynn’s request for the mayor to release information on federal immigration detainer requests ignored by the city’s police department, and disclose whether they included criminal charges.

The Council voted, 9-4, Wednesday to defeat Flynn’s “17F request” that would have given Mayor Michelle Wu a one-week deadline to provide the body with specifics about ICE detainer requests ignored by the Boston Police Department from Jan. 1, 2024 to the present.

Speaking on the Council floor, Flynn said he was seeking “basic information” regarding detainer requests from that time period.

Flynn’s order called for the mayor to provide the Council with “any and all communication from any federal government agency to the Boston Police Department or any city department about detainer requests, any cooperation agreements, and/or memorandum of understanding.”

He also asked for the mayor to release information on how many detainer requests the city has received from ICE during that time period, the reason for the request and how Boston Police responded to it.

Flynn’s request called for Wu to disclose specific reasons for the ICE detainer requests, including whether they pertained to “open criminal cases.”

Boston City Councilors Ed Flynn and Erin Murphy during a City Council meeting on Wednesday. (Matt Stone/Boston Herald)

Councilor Ben Weber, an ally of the mayor, spoke against Flynn’s order, saying that it would further the Trump administration’s “false narrative” that sanctuary cities like Boston that provide protections for illegal immigrants are unsafe.

Weber spoke of the federal administration’s immigration crackdown, where “we’ve seen cities terrorized, people pepper-sprayed in their faces, doors knocked down, constitutional rights being violated and people being murdered.”

“That’s all based around this false narrative that our cities are unsafe and it’s because of our immigrants that they’re unsafe,” Weber said, adding of Tuesday’s State of the Union address, “We saw the president double-down on that last night.

“I personally do not want to give any oxygen to that false narrative, and I do feel like this 17F is aimed at that,” Weber added.

Flynn countered by saying that his 17F “was a routine information request,” and asserted that his colleagues were pressured by the mayor to kill it.

“In the interest of transparency and accountability, these documents should be provided to city officials and the public,” Flynn said in a statement to the Herald. “Some City Council colleagues were under political pressure from the mayor’s office to vote against releasing these documents to the public.”

Council President Liz Breadon joined Councilors Gabriela Coletta Zapata, Sharon Durkan, Ruthzee Louijeune, Julia Mejia, Enrique Pepén, Henry Santana, Weber, and Brian Worrell in voting against Flynn’s 17F. Councilors Miniard Culpepper, John FitzGerald, Flynn and Erin Murphy were the four ‘yes’ votes.

Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox submitted a report to the City Council last month that stated the department ignored all 57 detainer requests issued by federal authorities last year.

Cox attributed his department’s non-compliance to the Boston Trust Act, which was first enacted in 2014 and enshrines the city’s sanctuary status. It prohibits local cooperation with federal authorities on civil matters, but still allows for cooperation with ICE in criminal matters like human trafficking, child exploitation, drug and weapons trafficking, and cybercrimes, per city officials.

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Boston’s tendency to ignore federal civil detainer requests due to the Trust Act led to a squabble between ICE and Boston Police last year that centered around a discrepancy in how many detainer requests the respective sides reported for 2024.

Cox reported last year that the police department refused to act on all 15 civil immigration detainer requests received in 2024. ICE officials quickly countered by saying that they had issued 198 detainer requests, some of which involved noncitizens who had been arrested by BPD for “egregious criminal activity.”

Asked whether the city should be ignoring federal detainer requests, Flynn told the Herald Tuesday, “I do believe we have a responsibility when there is any type of criminal activity, that we can’t ignore it, regardless of who was involved. I believe we have to provide safe and healthy neighborhoods, and I believe we should have zero tolerance for any type of criminal activity in Boston.”