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With the Trump administration zeroing in on Boston’s sanctuary stance toward illegal immigration, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed it is reviewing the status of a former African-born councilwoman who was sentenced Friday in a corruption probe.
Cape Verde-born Boston Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson pleaded guilty earlier this year in relation to what the Boston Herald described as a kickback scheme she carried out in a City Hall bathroom.
Libs of TikTok, a social media account known for criticizing liberal hypocrisy and run by activist Chaya Raichik, highlighted Anderson last week, and said that a source had told her DHS was investigating Anderson.
“We are looking into this, yes,” Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News Digital when asked about the claim on Monday.
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After she was elected in 2021, Anderson spoke to WGBH about her Muslim and African background, mentioning that she had “been undocumented.”
“We always say the ‘ummah’ which means ‘community’. It doesn’t necessarily exclude non-Muslims.”
“As the person that I am — Muslim, Cape Verdean, someone who’s been undocumented, an African immigrant and now African-American — I think that all of that is what makes me a very dynamic Black woman,” Anderson said at the time.
Cape Verde, an archipelago a few hundred miles offshore of Senegal, is home to about 600,000 people and best known in the U.S. as the area from which many North Atlantic hurricanes develop.
During her post-election speech in Boston’s Nubian Square, Anderson said she hoped to work to break down “segregation” between the heavily-minority Roxbury neighborhood and the South End of Boston.
“If we can begin to be actually sincere about the work and putting the community first. That’s when I will start feeling really good,” said Anderson, who was the first African immigrant elected to the council, according to WGBH.
In regard to her court case, the Herald reported Anderson gave a staff member $13,000 under the condition $7,000 would return to her, adding the swap happened in the aforementioned restroom.
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Judge Indira Talwani, an Obama appointee, told Anderson the kickback may have been considered “low-hanging fruit,” but was a “breach of trust,” nonetheless, according to the paper.
Anderson later lashed out at the media, naming the Herald as well as Fox’s Boston affiliate, demanding they “stop talking about me,” and that being in the news is not helpful as an “introvert.”
She alleged the press does not always “report accurately on Black people,” and that the media also “tr[ies] to create stories” and should “verify your facts.”
Special Agent-in-Charge Ted Docks of the FBI’s Boston division said Anderson, “let the power she wielded go to her head and routinely put herself over her constituents who trusted her to act on their behalf and for their benefit.”
“Today’s sentence holds her accountable for flagrantly embracing a culture of fraud and deceit and brazenly pocketing taxpayer money inside a City Hall bathroom to feather her nest.”
The DHS announcement of a probe came several days into an ongoing spat between the Trump administration in Washington and the Wu administration in Boston.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu held a raucous press conference last month, daring Attorney General Pam Bondi to follow through on her letters to blue-city leaders threatening federal action over sanctuary city policies.
Wu, a Democrat, accused the Trump administration of being a party that “doesn’t follow the law.”
“At a time when this federal administration is already causing so much fear and harm in our communities, these threats are serious and consequential,” she said. The remarks came after the Trump administration warned it could sue or cut federal funds if cities refused to cooperate on immigration enforcement.
“Stop attacking our cities to hide your administration’s failures. Unlike the Trump administration, Boston follows the law… You are wrong on the law, and you are wrong on safety,” Wu said.
Bondi had issued letters to several sanctuary jurisdictions warning them that their ordinances in regard to cooperation with immigration enforcement run counter to federal law.
Fox News Digital reached out to the public defender listed for Anderson, Scott Bauer, but did not immediately hear back.
