In the past, cities such as San Francisco and Chicago attracted the ire of conservatives for their liberal policies; Boston tended to fly under the radar, until now.

“Boston is a New England liberal city, which is maybe the quintessential elite university town,” said Matthew Baum, a professor of global communications and public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. “All of those things make it a natural source of antipathy for the current administration. Whatever you think about their policies, they’re directed on all the stuff that makes Boston, Boston. I think that goes a long way to explaining: Why Boston?”

The feud between the city and the White House kicked into high gear in late February, when Trump “border czar” Tom Homan declared he was “coming to Boston and I’m bringing hell with me.” Homan also criticized Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox for abiding by a Massachusetts law that dictates local police cannot keep immigrants detained for future deportation without a criminal warrant. Wu jumped in to defend Cox, saying he “has my complete confidence & support” in a post on social media. “We’re going to continue following & enforcing the laws to keep all Bostonians safe.”

Then, on March 5, Wu testified before Congress about Boston’s immigration policies. Her testimony included a fresh dig at Homan.

“Shame on him for lying about my city,” Wu said. “For having the nerve to insult our police commissioner, who has overseen the safest Boston’s been in anyone’s lifetime. Bring him here under oath, and let’s ask him some questions.”

A few weeks later on March 18, Homan kept his promise and came to Boston but did not make his presence in the city publicly known until after he left. According to federal officials, over a six-day operation across Massachusetts, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 370 people. Of those arrested, 205 had “significant criminal convictions or charges,” according to ICE officials, who didn’t provide information on the other 165 people arrested. Homan, in a post on X, claimed the operation was necessary “because Massachusetts and Boston are sanctuaries that refuse to cooperate with ICE.”

Governor Maura Healey responded that Massachusetts is “not a sanctuary state, and Massachusetts law enforcement regularly partners with federal agencies and federal law enforcement to keep people safe.”

“Public safety is a major priority for me, and it should never be a partisan issue,” she added.

But political operatives on both sides of the aisle say the animosity between a progressive city such as Boston and the Republican-controlled federal government is a symptom of the country’s wider partisan divide.

“Trump is a master storyteller, and he understands intuitively that the best narratives have a good versus evil kind of setting,” said Doug Rubin, a Democratic strategist who has worked on campaigns for the likes of Senator Elizabeth Warren, former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, and former Boston mayor Marty Walsh.

By calling out Boston, Trump and his allies are attempting “to pit the working class and working families against liberal elites. That’s a narrative that has worked for him successfully in both of his campaigns,” Rubin added.

Wendy Wakeman, a Massachusetts-based GOP strategist, said it was local politicians who courted Trump’s scrutiny, not the other way around. “I don’t think you can find a more radical mayor in the country than Michelle Wu,” she said. “I am not surprised that the reasonable policies of President Trump — which are enacted to protect Americans — are drawing his attention, and his administration’s attention, to Massachusetts.”

Still, Wakeman argued the Trump administration’s deportations are not politically motivated but instead are born out of practicality. “Why do bank robbers rob banks? It’s because that’s where the money is,” Wakeman said. “Why is Tom Holman coming to Massachusetts to arrest criminals from other nations living in the United States? It’s because they’re here.”

Homan has said repeatedly he targeted Boston after reading news reports about undocumented people committing crimes in the city.

The White House did not return a request for comment.

“Conservative media promotes this vision of American cities being overrun by illegal immigrants causing crimes,” said Republican strategist Alex Conant, who was communications director for current Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential bid. Outlets including Fox News, Breitbart, and Daily Wire have all recently covered immigration issues in Boston.

“Trump has always been preoccupied by the state of American cities,” Conant said. “I think Boston is a great American city that he sees as in decline, not unlike Chicago, San Francisco, New York, or D.C. And part of that is he has an image of cities filled with illegal immigrants committing crimes and he has made removing immigrants an administration priority.”

Representative Eric Swalwell, a Democrat who represents parts of California’s Bay Area and has frequently parried Trump’s jabs at his district, recommends Boston officials simply do not back down: “Shrinking is the worst thing you can do because then he’ll know that he owns you, and he’ll just keep coming back to get more. That’s the only language a bully understands, is strength.”

Baum, the Harvard professor, argued that immigration policy alone isn’t what’s driving the wedge between Boston and the White House.

“It seems like the core economic engines of this region are under aggressive assault right now,” he said, referencing the administration’s efforts to cut biomedical research funding and demands on elite universities. The former, he said, is being targeted because “post-COVID, there’s been a notable decline in trust in science and medicine, disproportionately among Republicans.” Meanwhile, universities are being sanctioned because of “the perceived overreach of progressives on hot-button cultural issues, with the epicenter being elite colleges,” he said.

For the Trump administration, the likely strategy behind cracking down on Boston “is to shoot a warning shot across the bow at other cities,” Baum said.

Among those interviewed for this story, though, there was consensus the tension is unlikely to abate any time soon.

Wakeman expects Massachusetts will remain in conservative crosshairs because so many of the state’s elected officials have “signaled that they’re at war with Donald Trump.” Plus, any blowback will have little practical effect on Trump executing his agenda.

“If the state of Massachusetts had some juice — in other words, a congressman or a senator who was important for future votes — then perhaps somebody might be able to run interference,” she said.

Conant shared a similar assessment that “this is a fight with few political consequences” for the president since “there’s not a lot of Trump voters in Boston.”

Tal Kopan of Globe staff contributed reporting to this story.

Julian E.J. Sorapuru can be reached at julian.sorapuru@globe.com. Follow him on X @JulianSorapuru.