Cambridge police logged 10 ICE interactions in six months, shared no information

CAMBRIDGE — April 7, 2026 — Cambridge Public Safety Committee reviews police immigration enforcement log showing 10 ICE contacts in six months. At an April 7 hearing, Superintendent Pauline Wells walked the three-member committee through a tracker required by the city's Welcoming Community Ordinance, covering September through December 2025, in which Cambridge officers declined to share information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in every logged incident; three individuals were nonetheless detained by ICE outside police facilities during that period. First Assistant City Solicitor Kate Clamola outlined the City Manager's February 2026 executive order, which bars immigration enforcement staging on city property and requires officers to document and report all federal agent contacts, but noted enforcement of the property restrictions would come through litigation, not on-scene arrests. Superintendent Fred Cabral reported 1,173 shoplifting complaints in 2025 and 238 arrests, with officers applying "quite a bit of discretion" rather than arresting every detained suspect — a response to Councilor Sabrina Wheeler's question about whether the fingerprint-to-ICE pipeline should shift how the city handles low-level offenses. ICE contact has dropped to two or three incidents in 2026 to date, with Wells attributing the decline partly to Cambridge's documented non-cooperation and partly to federal agents being diverted to other duties.