BOSTON (AP) — A district attorney in Boston harshly criticized the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Wednesday after one of its agents detained a suspect while he was on trial.
ICE agent Brian Sullivan took Wilson Martell-Lebron, 49, into custody last week as he was leaving court. A Boston Municipal Court judge issued a ruling Monday against Sullivan, arguing that he deprived Martell-Lebron of his rights to due process and fair trial.
“This action by ICE was troubling and extraordinarily reckless,” Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden said. “As the judge noted, ICE's actions deprived Mr. Martell-Lebron of his right to a fair trial. It also deprived our office of our intent to hold the defendant accountable for his alleged crime.”
Hayden also said such actions make Boston less safe — contrary to what, he said, ICE claims.
“I've watched ICE actions over the last few months, and I have concerns that those actions are harming our public safety goals,” Hayden said. “We’re now finding witnesses reluctant to cooperate with investigators due to fear of ICE. This harms public safety. We are seeing victims refuse to provide information about crimes against them due to fear of ICE. This harms public safety.”
A spokesman for ICE did not return a call seeking comment.
Summerville dismissed a charge against Martell-Lebron of making false statements on his driver’s license application — namely that he was not Martell-Lebron. After that Summerville filed the contempt charge against Sullivan, which could lead Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden review the case to determine whether any charges should be filed.
“It's reprehensible,” said Ryan Sullivan, one of Martell-Lebron's lawyers. “Law enforcement agents have a job to see justice is done. Prosecutors have a job to see justice is done. There is no greater injustice in my mind than the government arresting someone, without identifying themselves, and preventing them from exercising their constitutionally guaranteed right to a jury trial.”
The Justice Department filed a motion Wednesday in federal court supporting Sullivan's effort to dismiss the charge. It argued that the state court lacked the authority to “issue that patently unlawful and erroneous order.”
“This damaging state intrusion into federal functions is the precise harm that the Supremacy Clause guards against,” U.S. Attorney Leah Foley said in the motion. “The state court’s order disregards bedrock principles of federalism and inflicts an unacceptable burden (and ongoing threat of criminal prosecution) on a duly authorized federal official. This Court should immediately vacate the state court order.”
Immigration officers were a growing presence at courthouses during Trump’s first term, prompting pushback from judges and other local officials. The president has gone further in his second term by repealing a policy in place since 2011 for agents to generally avoid places such as schools, houses of worship and hospitals.
Under current policy, immigration officials can make arrests “in or near courthouses when they have credible information that leads them to believe the targeted alien(s) is or will be present” and as long as they are not prohibited from doing so by state or local law.
“The fact that this arrest occurred in between trial days during the Commonwealth’s prosecution of Defendant — and thus, in the state court’s (mistaken) view, violated Defendant’s right to attend his trial — does not alter the analysis,” Foley said. “The whole point of Supremacy Clause immunity is that federal law — not state law, state authorities, or state proceedings — must govern the conduct of federal officials in carrying out their federal duties.”
Hayden said he could not recall a case where ICE detained a defendant during a trial.
“It should not have happened, and we’re going to do everything we can to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he told reporters.
Sullivan described a tense scene in which ICE agents pounced on Martell-Lebron without identifying themselves, put him into a pickup and sped away. The trial had just begun Thursday with opening statements and the first witnesses.
The Justice Department said in its motion that agents including Sullivan identified themselves and told Martell-Lebron to stop before detaining him.
Sullivan said Martell-Lebron, who is from the Dominican Republic and living with family in Massachusetts, is now at the Plymouth detention facility for allegedly being an undocumented immigrant, he said.
In its motion, the Justice Department also alleged that Martell-Lebron is in the country illegally and has several criminal convictions for drug trafficking. It also said ICE has been trying to detain him since 2007.
During the two-day hearing, Sullivan said the lead prosecution witness confirmed that both the Massachusetts State police and prosecutors were aware of ICE plans to arrest Martell-Lebron.
“What we were challenging is that they arrested him in the middle of his trial and did not return him,” he said. “If he had been brought to court on Friday morning by ICE, we would not have moved to dismiss. We would not be asking for sanctions. We would have just finished the trial."
In a statement Tuesday, state police said they acted appropriately after learning of ICE's plans. “As in any situation where a member becomes aware of federal immigration enforcement, the Troopers responded appropriately by neither assisting nor obstructing the federal action,” the statement said.
Hayden also defended his attorneys' handling of the situation, denying they helped ICE. He said they twice requested the judge issue an order compelling ICE to return Martell-Lebron.
“All of our actions in this case clearly demonstrated our intent to hold Martell-Lebron accountable,” Hayden said. “None of that demonstrated any collusion with ICE to deprive him of his right to a trial. Any claim that we collaborated with ICE in their actions to remove the defendant from the trial are wholly unsupported by any credible evidence.”
Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden speaks about the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detaining a man while he was on trial during a news conference on Wednesday, April 2, 2025 in Boston (AP Photos/Michael Casey)
Suffolk County District Attorney Kevin Hayden speaks about the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detaining a man while he was on trial during a news conference on Wednesday, April 2, 2025 in Boston (AP Photos/Michael Casey)
President Donald Trump remained defiant Monday as global markets continued plunging after his tariff announcement last week.
Trump has insisted his tariffs are necessary to rebalance global trade and rebuild domestic manufacturing. He's singled out China as “the biggest abuser of them all” and criticized Beijing for increasing its own tariffs in retaliation.
Here's the latest:
Wilmer Escaray left Venezuela in 2007 and enrolled at Miami Dade College, opening his first restaurant six years later.
Today, he has a dozen businesses that hire Venezuelan migrants like he once was, workers who are now terrified by what could be the end of their legal shield from deportation.
Since the start of February, the Trump administration has ended two federal programs that together allowed more 700,000 Venezuelans to live and work legally in the U.S. along with hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans.
In the largest Venezuelan community in the United States, people dread what could face them if lawsuits that aim to stop the government fail. It’s all anyone discusses in “Little Venezuela” or “Doralzuela,” a city of 80,000 people surrounded by Miami sprawl, freeways and the Florida Everglades.
▶ Read more about fears in Miami’s ‘Little Venezuela’
The Monday meeting will make Netanyahu the first foreign leader to visit Trump since he unleashed tariffs on countries around the world.
Whether Netanyahu’s visit succeeds in bringing down or eliminating Israel’s tariffs remains to be seen, but how it plays out could set the stage for how other world leaders try to address the new tariffs.
Netanyahu’s office has put the focus of his hastily organized Washington visit on the tariffs, while stressing that the two leaders will discuss major geopolitical issues including the war in Gaza, tensions with Iran, Israel-Turkey ties and the International Criminal Court, which issued an arrest warrant against the Israeli leader last year. Trump in February signed an executive order imposing sanctions on the ICC over its investigations of Israel.
▶ Read more about Trump’s meeting with Netanyahu
The stock market briefly spiked on a report that Kevin Hassett, a top White House economic adviser, said the president was considering a 90-day pause on tariffs.
The supposed remark from Hassett circulated on social media, but no one could pinpoint where it came from even as the market flashed from red to green.
Hassett had spoken to Fox News earlier in the morning, when he was asked about a potential pause. However, he was noncommittal.
“I think the president is going to decide what the president is going to decide,” he said.
▶ Read more updates on the financial markets
Vance’s mother, Beverly Aikins’ on Friday received a 10-year sobriety medallion in the Roosevelt Room at a ceremony with friends and family.
Vance described Aikins’ past drug addiction in his bestselling book “Hillbilly Elegy.”
The cases are likely headed to a Supreme Court showdown on the president’s power over independent agencies.
A divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued the ruling in the lawsuits separately brought by Merit Systems Protection Board member Cathy Harris and National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox.
The ruling reverses, at least for now, a judgement from a three-judge panel from the same appellate court.
▶ Read more about Trump and the board members
The dispute over tariffs has caused some fracturing within Trump’s political coalition.
Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman said the president was “launching a global economic war against the whole world at once” and urged him to “call a time out.”
“We are heading for a self-induced, economic nuclear winter,” he wrote on X on Sunday.
Top White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett told Fox News on Monday morning that Ackman should “ease off the rhetoric a little bit.”
Hassett said critics were exaggerating the impact of trade disputes and talk of an “economic nuclear winter” was “completely irresponsible rhetoric.”
The president showed no interest in changing course despite turmoil in global markets.
He said other countries had been “taking advantage of the Good OL’ USA” on international trade.
“Our past ‘leaders’ are to blame for allowing this, and so much else, to happen to our Country,” he wrote on Truth Social. “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Trump criticized China for increasing its own tariffs and “not acknowledging my warning for abusing countries not to retaliate.”
On a day when stock markets around the world dropped precipitously, Alabama Republican Party Chairman John Wahl led a celebration of the president whose global tariffs sparked the sell-off.
With no mention of the Wall Street roller coaster and global economic uncertainty, Wahl declared his state GOP’s “Trump Victory Dinner” — and the broader national moment — a triumph. And for anyone who rejects Trump, his agenda and the “America First” army that backs it all, Wahl had an offer: “The Alabama Republican Party will buy them a plane ticket to any country in the world they want to go to.”
Wahl’s audience — an assembly of lobbyists and donors, state lawmakers, local party officials and grassroots activists — laughed, applauded and sometimes roared throughout last week’s gala in downtown Birmingham.
Yet beyond the cheerleading, there were signs of a more cautious optimism and some worried whispers over Trump’s sweeping tariffs, the particulars of his deportation policy and the aggressive slashing by his Department of Government Efficiency.
▶ Read more about Trump’s support in Alabama
This morning, at 11 a.m., World Series Champions, the Los Angeles Dodgers, will visit the White House and meet the president. Later, at 1 p.m., Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit the White House and meet with Trump. At 2 p.m., Netanyahu and Trump will participate in a Bilateral Meeting in the Oval Office. At 2:30 p.m., they will hold a joint news conference.
Trump said Sunday that he won’t back down on his sweeping tariffs on imports from most of the world unless countries even out their trade with the U.S.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said he didn’t want global markets to fall, but also that he wasn’t concerned about the massive sell-off either, adding, “sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.”
His comments came as global financial markets appeared on track to continue sharp declines once trading resumes Monday, and after Trump’s aides sought to soothe market concerns by saying more than 50 nations had reached out about launching negotiations to lift the tariffs.
The higher rates are set to be collected beginning Wednesday. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said unfair trade practices are not “the kind of thing you can negotiate away in days or weeks.” The United States, he said, must see “what the countries offer and whether it’s believable.”
▶ Read more about the global impact of Trump’s tariffs
Pedestrian are reflected on a brokerage house's window as an electronic board displays shares trading index, in Beijing, Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
Shipping containers are stored at Bensenville intermodal terminal in Franklin Park, Ill., Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
President Donald Trump arrives at the White House on Marine One, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
