Boston Mayor Michelle Wu's office is running a ten-week political activism course called "Immigrants Lead Boston" that pays each enrollee $575 to attend. The program, operated by Wu's Mayor's Office for Immigrant Advancement in partnership with the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, requires no legal immigration status to participate.
U.S.-born residents are explicitly excluded.
That's the detail that separates this from the usual waste-of-taxpayer-money story. It's not that the city of Boston decided to spend public funds on a political organizing course — though that's bad enough. It's that they wrote the eligibility rules to specifically lock out the people whose taxes are funding the whole thing. According to reports, no legal status is required to earn the grant. Born in Guatemala? Welcome aboard. Born in Dorchester? You're not invited.
The course curriculum covers "organizing, public narrative, city government, immigration history, racism, and equity." Strip away the academic language and you've got a taxpayer-funded crash course in how to lobby Boston's government for policies that benefit people who aren't supposed to be in the country.
And we know what those policies look like, because the program's graduates are already pushing them. According to local news stations, past participants have gone on to advocate for driver's licenses for illegal aliens and rent control across the city. The pipeline is efficient: arrive illegally, take the city's course, learn how to pressure elected officials, then pressure elected officials for more benefits for illegal arrivals.
The $575-per-enrollee figure is actually the discounted version. In 2025, the program paid participants up to $10,000 each. The city hasn't disclosed how many people have enrolled or graduated — officials declined to provide those numbers — but Wu's office has directed $4.5 million in public and private funding toward immigrant services overall.
Someone in Wu's administration had to draft the eligibility language for this program. Someone had to write the words that excluded American citizens by birth from a program funded with American tax dollars. That wasn't an oversight. That was a design choice.
The usual defense of programs like this is that they promote "civic engagement" and help immigrants "participate in democracy." But civic engagement programs that are open to everyone don't need eligibility restrictions based on country of birth. The restriction tells you what this actually is: a targeted investment in a political constituency that Wu's administration wants organized and active.
Boston spent $4.5 million on immigrant services. The program teaches organizing and public narrative. The graduates lobby for policies that expand benefits for illegal immigrants. The participants get paid. The American-born residents of Boston get the bill.