Pro-Ed Markey ad says Seth Moulton ‘thanked ICE.’ Moulton has called to abolish the agency.

A PAC backing incumbent U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., portrayed leading challenger Rep. Seth Moulton as supportive of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"Moulton voted with Republicans to thank ICE for protecting our homeland," an ad from the Commonwealth Together PAC says. "He thanked ICE as they were terrorizing our communities and then killed citizens in broad daylight."

The ad includes a 2025 TV news clip captioned "ICE agents violently detain Worcester mom & daughter." The footage came from NBC10 Boston’s coverage of a May 2025 incident in which ICE arrested a Brazilian woman and police arrested her teenage daughter.

We looked at Moulton’s X account and official press releases and news reports that month and did not find any comments by Moulton about that ICE arrest.

The ad also showed January footage of federal agents publicly killing Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Pretti was a U.S. citizen and intensive care unit nurse whom the Trump administration officials falsely called a domestic terrorist. Pretti’s death came less than three weeks after a federal agent shot another U.S. citizen, Renee Good, in Minneapolis.

The PAC supports incumbent Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., Moulton’s rival in the Sept. 1 Democratic primary. Unions representing health care workers, teachers and environmental leaders formed the PAC.

The ad distorts Moulton’s support for the agency by plucking out a one-phrase mention in a 417-word resolution and omits that Moulton has repeatedly criticized the agency.

Resolution condemned an antisemitic attack by a man who overstayed his visa

In June 2025, the House voted on two resolutions condemning an antisemitic attack in Boulder, Colorado. Moulton supported both, but the ad cites only one.

The ad highlights a sentence in H. Res. 488  that said the House "expresses gratitude to law enforcement officers, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel, for protecting the homeland."

Rep. Gabe Evans, R-Colo., introduced the resolution to denounce Mohamed Sabry Soliman, who police said firebombed a pro-Israel demonstration June 1. More than a dozen people were injured and one later died. Soliman, an Egyptian national who overstayed a tourist visa, remains in custody awaiting trial.

A cyclist passes by the flag of Israel, taped on a hydrant on the east end of the Pearl Street Mall, after a June 1, 2025, attack near the courthouse in Boulder, Colorado. (AP)

The resolution called on federal officials to vet whether visa applicants have espoused antisemitic terrorism. It said failing to remove people who overstay visas is dangerous. 

The resolution passed 280-113 with 75 Democrats, including Moulton, joining Republicans in support. 

A separate resolution, H. Res. 481, also condemned the Boulder attack and other antisemitic violence but did not mention ICE.

Andrew Farnitano, a Commonwealth Together PAC spokesperson, pointed to a June 9, 2025, statement by J Street, a liberal pro-Israel advocacy group, that criticized the version that thanked ICE, calling it "exactly the kind of resolution you’d expect when MAGA hardliners hijack concerns about antisemitism to push their longstanding anti-immigrant, anti-democracy agenda."

In response to criticism of the resolution, Moulton said  he supported its overarching purpose of condemning antisemitic terror. "There rarely exists a bill or resolution that I vote for because I agree with every single word in it," his June 11, 2025, statement said.

"I will continue to loudly oppose Trump’s agenda — especially his desires to weaponize ICE and create a culture of fear in immigrant communities across the country — while loudly condemning antisemitism," Moulton wrote. "Democrats can — and need — to do both."

In 2026, Moulton called for abolishing or reforming ICE

Moulton has frequently criticized ICE. 

In response to our questions, Moulton’s campaign cited his votes and statements against Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda going back a decade. (He’s been in office since 2015.) 

In January, he visited Minneapolis to learn how people were organizing against what he called "state-sponsored terror" by ICE agents and other federal immigration officials. He has also brought attention to the case of Marcelo Gomes da Silva, a Milford, Massachusetts, high school student and Brazilian national who arrived in the U.S. as a young child and was detained by ICE on his way to volleyball practice. Moulton invited Gomes da Silva to be his guest at the State of the Union address.

Moulton has called for major changes to ICE, including:

• Ensuring prosecution of ICE: In December, Moulton introduced legislation to permit victims of constitutional violations by federal officers to sue. He cited "months of widely documented civil rights violations against the public, including American Citizens."

• Abolishing ICE: In a January Instagram video, Moulton said,"ICE is beyond repair. It obviously needs to be abolished."

• Calling to redirect or oppose the agency’s funding. In January, Moulton said he would vote to fund ICE only if conditions were met, such as banning agents’ routine use of masks and requiring the agency to publicly report all stops of U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents. He introduced legislation to redirect ICE funding from the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act to Affordable Care Act tax credits. "We have no obligation to give taxpayer dollars to an agency that is using your hard-earned money to enable state-sponsored violence against our own people," he said in March, opposing Homeland Security funding.

• Cosponsoring a January resolution to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. He said Noem used "violence against U.S. citizens and lawful individuals." President Donald Trump fired Noem in early March.

Our ruling

An ad said that Moulton "voted with Republicans to thank ICE for protecting our homeland. He thanked ICE as they were terrorizing our communities and then killed citizens in broad daylight."

The kernel of truth here is that Moulton voted for a 2025 resolution that included one sentence expressing gratitude for ICE, but the main purpose of the resolution was to condemn an antisemitic attack. The resolution came one month after a Brazilian woman was taken into ICE custody in Worcester, Massachusetts, but before federal immigration agents publicly killed two U.S. citizens in Minnesota. Moulton was one of 75 Democrats to vote in favor of the resolution, and he also voted for a separate resolution the same month that similarly condemned antisemitic violence and did not mention ICE.

The ad creates a misleading impression that Moulton supports ICE even as it killed U.S. citizens. His record reflects the opposite. He has called for abolishing the agency or overhauling it.

We rate this statement Mostly False.

PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this fact-check.