BOSTON — Mayor Michelle Wu plans on trying to prevent immigration enforcement officers from parking in Boston by trying to figure out who wants to lease spaces to them.

Earlier this month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement posted on a government procurement site that the agency is conducting market research “to identify sources capable of providing surface and/or structured vehicle parking spaces in the vicinity of existing or planned ICE facilities” in cities across the country.

ICE put Boston on its list and said it was looking for 249 contiguous spaces.

Responses to the posting “will be used to determine the appropriate acquisition strategy, including the extent of competition and small business set-aside potential, for future Requests for Lease Proposals (RLPs) covering these requirements,” the agency said.

In an interview with WCVB’s On The Record Sunday, Wu said that her administration hasn’t had direct contact with the agency about the parking issue.

“This is not a surprise because even when we’ve asked for specific information it’s been difficult or impossible to get it,” she said.

Wu said the market research “seems like an early precursor step” to future enforcement in the city and she said the city would reach out to property woners who respond to the ICE notice.

Previously, Wu signed an executive order to prevent ICE from operating on city property, parks, or parking lots, without a court order or a warrant.

Admitting in the interview that she can not stop private property owners from leasing to ICE, Wu said her office will file public records requests to learn who is interested in working with the agency, so that the city can contact those entities.

“We can’t block private property owners,” she said, but the city can inform them of their opinion on the issues, which is that “this is not a way to make the community safer.”

Wu pointed to fatal shootings in Minnesota and Maine as examples of when ICE’s enforcement has had “life and death consequences.”

“We oppose any, any mechanism to allow them to do that here,” she said.

Jessica Vaughn, director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, a DC-based research institute, said that it is policies like the ones Wu has implemented against ICE in Boston that have forced the agency to do its enforcement in the streets.

If local leaders allowed law enforcement to honor ICE detainers, requests of local agencies to detain individuals ICE suspects are here illegally, she argued ICE officers could take their targets into custody when they’ve been detained at jails and prisons.

The Boston Trust Act prevents Boston Police from following ICE civil immigration detainers. The Herald previously reported that the department ignored 57 detainer requests last year.

“They have no choice,” Vaughn said of ICE. “They have to go out to the streets to find them.”

She said that local officials, including Wu, should allow police and sheriffs departments to have more discretion about which detainers they follow.

Vaughn also noted that these policies were different under prior mayors, including Marty Walsh and Thomas Menino.

“Mayor Wu has really gone full sanctuary,” she said.

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