A Massachusetts police chief has had enough with protesters of a local ICE office, saying the near-daily demonstrations are straining his department’s pubic safety resources.
Burlington Police Chief Thomas Browne is speaking out after the arrests of 11 protesters, who he says “refused to move” from the facility’s front entrance in an “act of civil disobedience.”
Browne’s department responded to the ICE office on Tuesday after Federal Protective Services officers reported that roughly 40 people were blocking the administrative entrance.
“This incident pulled nine police officers from other assignments, including patrol,” Browne said in a statement shared on Wednesday, “to ensure a peaceful and orderly resolution to what has at times been an ongoing emotionally charged protest situation at this location.”
The department stated that a majority of protesters moved to what it described as a “free speech area” outside the building’s security perimeter after officers tried to de-escalate the situation for 40 minutes.
Eleven protesters, however, remained around, prompting officers to arrest them. Federal Protective Services issued a verbal no-trespass order and will issue a written order in the future.
Each of the 11 protesters was released from police custody after the department worked with a Woburn District Court clerk magistrate, and they will be ordered to appear in court on trespassing and disturbing-the-peace charges.
“Protestors have been at this facility virtually every day since April 2025,” the police chief said in his statement, “and the ongoing situation has resulted in a significant deployment of public safety resources that would otherwise be deployed elsewhere in this town of nearly 30,000 residents, which almost triples each day with the vast number of people who work within Burlington.”
James Gertmenian, one of the 11 protesters arrested, said in a Facebook post Tuesday evening, after their release, that most of the group came from Maine, “because Mainers are among those being held at the facility.”
Gertmenian is a reverend who serves on a board at The BTS Center in Portland, Maine, an organization focused on challenging “systems of domination, extraction, and inequity.”
“We also brought gifts (maple syrup) to be given to the ICE employees,” Gertmenian wrote in his Facebook post, “as a sign that we recognize our common humanity with them. … We were turned away, of course, and the Burlington police took us in custody. Not for long, though.”
“The police captain lectured us about how our action was a waste of our time and of police time,” he added, “saying that it was ‘unreasonable’ to try to work out national political issues in a small town like Burlington.”
Protests at the ICE center, in a Burlington office park, are a near-daily occurrence. Demonstrators, like the group League of Women Voters of Westford, have alleged the building is filled with “inhumane treatment,” including “no beds, no windows, no clocks, no soap, no showers, and hardly any food or water.”
The center has drawn tours from members of Massachusetts’ congressional delegation and other state and local officials. The Department of Homeland Security has refuted claims of inhumane treatment.
ICE detainees are typically moved to a longer-term detention facility elsewhere, as the Burlington center acts more for administrative processing.
Detainees who are at the center for a longer stay are given “ample food, regular access to phones, showers and legal representation as well as medical care when needed,” ICE has said in the past.
Browne, the Burlington police chief, said his department “respects the First Amendment rights of our citizens,” but it is “duty-bound to uphold the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”
“We have been in regular contact with the organizers of the ongoing protests outside of the ICE office,” the chief said, “and while it is never our initial goal to resolve a situation with an arrest, this was a clear act of civil disobedience in which the parties involved were intentionally blocking the entrance and seeking to be arrested.”
Rev. Allison Smith, the senior minister of the Congregational Church in Cumberland, Maine, is part of a larger community group that supports immigrants in the region — people the group refers to as “New Mainers.”
Smith said they had been in contact with people in Burlington who previously tried to deliver care packages to detainees but had little success. She said the group is concerned about the Burlington facility, noting that when immigrants from Maine are taken into custody — which she described as unlawful arrest — many are processed there.
“We have heard about how deplorable the conditions are in there,” Smith said.
About 45 people from Maine and Massachusetts traveled to the Burlington facility on Tuesday with six care packages containing food, essential items such as soap, and even a flower. Each package included letters in various languages, which Smith said “reminded them that they were not alone.”
“They reminded them that we understand the profound fear and trauma that they’re facing,” she said. “They’ve been ripped away from their families and we’re not going to forget them and this is not one of our country’s values and that we will stand with them.”
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