(*This story first appeared in The Boston Business Journal, by Grant Welker.)
A day after Boston Mayor Michelle Wu defended the city’s treatment of immigrants in testimony before Congress, the U.S. Small Business Administration said Thursday it will move its regional office out of Boston as part of a broader plan to relocate those offices out of sanctuary cities.
The SBA’s Boston office is located in the federally owned Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. Federal Building next to North Station. The 11-story building was on the federal government’s list of buildings it would seek to sell — a list that has since disappeared, leaving their future uncertain.
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Wu defended the city’s welcoming policies to immigrants in a Congressional hearing Wednesday. The Trump administration has proclaimed the need to deport immigrants who are in the country illegally, and criticized Boston’s law enforcement leaders for not helping the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in those efforts.
In addition to Boston, mayors from Chicago, Denver and New York also testified, and each of those cities were also named in the SBA’s announced closure list, along with Atlanta and Seattle.
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As of two weeks ago, the SBA is headed by Administrator Kelly Loeffler, a former Republican U.S. senator from Georgia.
The SBA said it’s relocating its offices out of those cities because they “do not comply with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” and that “in the coming days, the SBA will promulgate a new policy requiring SBA loan applications to include a citizenship verification provision to ensure only legal, eligible applicants can access SBA programs.”
The SBA’s other Massachusetts office is in Springfield, another so-called sanctuary city. But the SBA didn’t say whether that office would remain. It also didn’t give a timeframe for the office moves.
A spokesperson for the Boston SBA office referred all questions to a federal spokesperson, who did not immediately respond to questions about the timing of the decision or when the office will actually be moved. The Massachusetts SBA website lists a total of 11 employees, split between the Boston and Springfield offices.
The O’Neill building also includes federal offices for Social Security, Homeland Security, the Department of State, Department of Housing and Urban Development and others.
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