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In the weeks before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, immigration advocates and lawyers in Massachusetts are preparing for the challenges ahead.
On his first day in office, Trump vowed to launch the “largest deportation program in American history.”
“I will save every city and town that has been invaded and conquered, and we will put these evil and bloodthirsty criminals in prison and then drive them out of our land as quickly as possible.” said the previous president at his rally at Madison Square Garden in New York last month.
To achieve its goals, Sarah Sherman-Stokes, deputy director of the Immigrants' Rights and Human Trafficking Clinic at Boston University, predicts that the Trump administration will invoke the law Alien Enemies Act of 1798which was used primarily in wartime to enable the military to perform large-scale deportation efforts.
If passed, immigration lawyers expect Trump's policies can be felt across the country – with some pondering Massachusetts is on the forefront.
Massachusetts has long been a hotspot for the refugee crisis as a result of overcrowded shelters and the flow of migrants into the state. It can also be home to several sanctuary cities, including Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Springfield, Holyoke and Amherst.
“We anticipate that immigration enforcement efforts could be focused on states or localities that are considered immigration-friendly, which could make Massachusetts a likely target,” Iván Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of Lawyers for Civil Rights, said recently told Boston.com.
“Great fear on site”
Espinoza-Madrigal says there was already “tremendous fear on the ground” within the immigrant community within the weeks following the election.
“Part of their job is to create a sense of terror in these communities to drive people further underground,” Sarang Sekhavat, chief of staff for the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Coalition, told Boston.com.
According to Rachel Benedict, an attorney on the Rian Immigration Center, the fear stems largely from the rhetoric Trump uses toward immigrants.
“The very words that Trump uses have a real impact and influence on the people of Massachusetts,” she told Boston.com. “His words matter.”
Sekhavat said he expects employers will lose their staff and a few children could also be without parents.
“How can you concentrate on school and building a life here if you don’t know what will happen to your parents?” said Benedikt.
Without a transparent plan from the Trump administration, there’s great “uncertainty” amongst each those that serve the immigrant community and the immigrants themselves, Sekhavat said.
“Everyone is really worried right now,” he said. “People don’t know what their lives will be like.”
Preparations
In the lead-up to Inauguration Day, Massachusetts immigration legal service providers are working across the clock to handle clients' concerns and work with local policymakers to strengthen protections for immigrants within the state.
Espinoza-Madrigal said his organization is currently examining how local and state policies may very well be “tightened” to make it harder to acquire resources for immigration enforcement.
To achieve this, Espinoza-Madrigal said he’s working with policymakers to “strengthen protections and close loopholes.”
“Federal immigration enforcement is not the responsibility of local and state officials,” he said. “We need Boston and other cities to make a strong commitment to supporting migrants.”
This support from local governments, Espinoza-Madrigal said, is palpable in monitoring and training law enforcement officers and faculty districts to make sure “our communities remain immigrant-friendly.”
“Lawyers for Civil Rights urges state and local governments to regularly train and supervise law enforcement and school officials to prevent collusion or entanglement with immigration authorities,” he said.
Sekhavat said he helps parents make plans for the care of their children within the event they’re picked up by ICE.
“We're trying to get materials like this out into the community so that these families can create the legal infrastructure in case the worst happens to them,” he said.
Sekhavat said his goal can also be to coach “as many people as possible” about their rights.
“We don’t want people to be afraid of simple things, like taking their kids to school or going grocery shopping,” he said. “At the same time, we need to ensure that they are informed about what the policy could potentially mean for them and how they can protect themselves.”
Daniel Santiago, an attorney and co-founder of the Mabel Center for Immigrant Justice, said he has received many calls from individuals expressing concern about their immigration cases and fears of deportation.
Both Santiago and Benedict said they filed as many lawsuits as they may in the times before Trump took office.
“There is a lot of prep work before the inauguration,” Santiago told Boston.com. “But we also assume that there will still be a lot of work afterwards.”
Many politicians are resisting, but advocates want more
States can resist cooperation with the federal government by refusing to detain immigrants of their communities and by stopping local police from cooperating with federal immigration authorities, Sherman-Stokes told Boston.com.
“We want our law enforcement agencies to focus on their priorities, on their mission, which is law enforcement, and not interfere with civilian law enforcement around immigration,” Sekhavat said.
In many cases in Boston, on existing law Prevents local police from cooperating with ICE enforcement.
“The idea that certain local law enforcement agencies would be required or expected to engage in mass deportations of residents who were not involved in serious criminal activity simply to fulfill this campaign promise is not possible under the laws of Boston.” said Wu on GBH's “Boston Public Radio” last week.
Tom Homan, Trump's appointed “border czar,” responded to Wu's comments on Newsmax on Monday: “Either she helps us or she gets the hell out of the way in which because we are going to.”
“Democrats’ penchant for pandering to their most extreme base puts residents at risk,” MassGOP Chairwoman Amy Carnevale said in a statement about Wu’s recent comments. “This policy is out of control and completely nonsensical.”
Still, Gov. Maura Healey reiterated Wu's plans in a recent interview on MSNBC and said she would ensure that the Massachusetts State Police also do not cooperate with Trump's deportation plans, as Boston.com previously reported. Healey said she supports the use of resistance by the state's regulatory agency, its executive powers and the state Legislature.
However, Sherman-Stokes says Healey's stated opposition is not enough. The state's last remaining ICE contract to detain migrants accused of “inhumane conditions” at the Plymouth County Correctional Facility has yet to be terminated.
“Advocates have repeatedly called on the state to terminate this contract, but it sits around like a loaded gun, ready to be expanded once Trump takes office,” she said.
Sherman-Stokes said she wants the state to introduce more protections for non-citizens to address the potential impact on the immigrant population in Massachusetts.
“I would like to see the state of Massachusetts and the elected officials in Massachusetts ensure that we provide housing to all non-citizens so that they are safe and not sitting on the streets and subject to ICE arrest and enforcement ” she said.
Espinoza-Madrigal said he would really like to see more motion behind politicians' words.
“The public comments we now have seen are helpful, but we clearly need more,” he said. “Monitoring and training are critical, and we haven’t seen enough of that at the local or state level.”
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