A Boston University student who claimed credit for reporting car wash workers to immigration authorities earned the praise of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the ire of his fellow students in recent days.
Zac Segal, who is the president of the university’s College Republicans club, said he had “been calling ICE for months” about workers at the Allston Car Wash, near the university campus, while sharing an article about federal agents detaining nine workers on Nov. 4.
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“This week they finally responded to my request to detain these criminals,” he wrote on X on Nov. 7. “As someone who lives in the neighborhood, I’ve seen how American jobs are being given away to those with no right to be here. Pump up the numbers!”
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Todd Pomerleau, a lawyer representing the workers at Allston Car Wash, said they had valid work permits but did not have time to retrieve them from the locker room before they were detained. Pomerleau said in a statement that the car wash was raided with “military-style” vehicles by armed and masked agents, according to the New York Times. One of the individuals arrested had been in the United States for 30 years, Pomerleau said.
Segal said he had received death threats in response to his post, and reposted, without comment, posts from other Boston University students that called him a “racist,” “fascist,” and a “Neo-Nazi.”
The BU College Democrats condemned Segal’s actions and said that for “the foreseeable future,” they would not collaborate with the university’s College Republicans club.
Meanwhile, the Republican club’s national group—the College Republicans of America—defended Segal, and recommended that other young Republicans follow his lead.
“We call on all College Republicans to follow in the lead of this great patriot and notify their local ICE forces of any suspected illegal activity in their communities immediately,” Martin Bertao, the national group’s president, said in a statement to the New York Times.
The clash over the raid on Boston University’s campus and beyond highlighted the deep political divide between Democrats and Republicans over President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation agenda.
Segal, who did not respond to TIME’s request for comment, defended his actions in a post on X on Friday.
“I reported suspicious activity to law enforcement because that is what any American should do. My intention was simple: to protect my community and uphold the rule of law,” he said.
“Extremists have circulated my personal details online and sent death threats. No matter who you are or what you believe, threats and intimidation are unacceptable and should be condemned by everyone,” he added.
Many mistakenly believed Segal was British because a biography on the university’s athletics website stated he was born in the United Kingdom. Segal said in his Friday post that he was born in Florida and raised in the U.K.
The official DHS account on X responded to Segal’s post with one word: “Patriot.”
But the DHS told TIME the raid was not launched as a result of Segal’s tip.
“The operation was highly targeted and relied on law enforcement intelligence—not your silly rumor,” DHS spokesperson Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in an emailed statement.
The post ‘Pump Up the Numbers’: Republican Student Claims Credit for ICE Raid on Car Wash That Led to 9 Arrests appeared first on TIME.
