Above: Sen. Liz Miranda of Boston speaks at a rally outside the State House in support of the "Protect Our Immigrant Communities" campaign on Jan. 29, 2025. Chris Lisinski/SHNS
By Chris Lisinski
State House News Service
Concerned by the Trump administration's unfolding deportation efforts, some Massachusetts lawmakers and immigrant rights advocates launched a new campaign Wednesday pressing the Legislature to offer a quick response.
Supporters gathered outside the State House for the start of the "Protect Our Immigrant Communities" campaign, calling for prompt action on legislation that would limit local law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration affairs, end contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and deploy state dollars toward legal fees for some Bay Staters' immigration proceedings.
Marbled throughout the speaking program were concerns about President Donald Trump's hardline stance toward illegal immigration, including his pledge to oversee mass deportations. The rally took place hours before Trump was set to sign a law requiring authorities to detain undocumented immigrants accused of some crimes, seemingly before they are convicted of any offenses.
"We must quickly take action to expand and enforce civil liberties and rights for all Massachusetts residents in the face of the orange man's administration [putting a] target on our commonwealth," said Democrat Sen. Liz Miranda of Boston.
The campaign, led by the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, set its sights on a long-debated bill known as the Safe Communities Act and another measure that is a newcomer to debate.
Reps. David Rogers of Cambridge and Frank Moran of Lawrence and Sen. Adam Gomez of Springfield filed legislation (HD 4072 / SD 2057) that would create a publicly funded "Immigrant Legal Defense Fund" that Bay Staters could use to cover attorney fees in immigration proceedings.
Gomez said the measure would "establish a united front to provide some of our most vulnerable residents with the protections and tools they need to face the threat of detention and deportation."
"Legal representation can often make all the difference in immigration court. Detained immigrants with a lawyer are 10 times more likely to win their case than those without legal representation," he said. "Still, in Massachusetts, more than half of the immigrants with pending cases are navigating their proceedings without a lawyer."
The bill would stand up the legal defense fund on the state's books and allow it to be seeded with legislative appropriations plus private money from corporations or nonprofits. Eligibility would be limited to applicants whose annual household income is 200 percent or less of the federal poverty limit.
MIRA Coalition Executive Director Elizabeth Sweet said New York, New Jersey, Colorado, California and Oregon have launched similar legal defense funds. Supporters in Massachusetts are hoping for a $10 million initial commitment to get it started, she said.
"That's probably not enough to cover all of the potential needs, but it would make a huge difference for the immigrants who are particularly in detention and those already in deportation proceedings," Sweet told the News Service. "While we know it's a significant amount of money, we've also seen that in some of the other states where they have passed similar bills, there is some offset. The reality is, if immigrants are not deported from our communities, if they're not put in detention, if they're remaining in their workplaces and contributing economically to the commonwealth, that benefits all of us."
The coalition said Massachusetts had 369 people in federal immigration detention as of this month.
The campaign is also backing the latest version of the Safe Communities Act, legislation that would move toward ending contracts with ICE, including so-called 287(g) agreements that delegates to state and local law enforcement officers the authority to perform immigration officer functions, and a long-debated bill seeking to stand up a more formal wall between local police and federal immigration authorities.
Supporters argue that immigration enforcement is solely a federal responsibility and that state and local police -- as well as the constituents they serve -- need more clarity that their jobs will not entail that complex work.
Versions of that bill have been floated on Beacon Hill for close to a decade.
The bill has earned committee endorsements in several terms, but for years, top House and Senate Democrats have decided against bringing it forward for a vote, instead opting to pursue reforms such as allowing undocumented immigrants to acquire driver's licenses.
Rep. Manny Cruz of Salem said he's optimistic the latest version will break the logjam because it has support from key law enforcement figures.
"We've worked with district attorneys like [Middlesex DA] Marian Ryan. We have police chiefs who have rallied around the bill and helped us tweak the language to ensure that we were addressing some of their concerns about due process and notification and communication," Cruz told the News Service. "We've done the work of engaging with local law enforcement. That's going to be our focus this session so that we can make the case that what local and state law enforcement are saying is that they don't want to be involved in civil immigration enforcement. I think that that's a really persuasive argument for my colleagues to understand."
Cruz, Gomez and Miranda were joined at Wednesday's rally by Sen. Jamie Eldridge of Marlborough and Rep. Priscila Sousa of Framingham.
Trump campaigned on ramping up deportations of people in the United States without legal status. Before taking office, he said his administration would prioritize undocumented immigrants with criminal histories.
The president issued a series of executive orders during his first week suspending refugee admissions and applications, pursuing additional removal of immigrants without legal status, cracking down on immigration at the country's southern border, and more.
Some Massachusetts Democrats are not convinced enforcement will target only those with criminal records.
"If anyone tells you that they're only focused on violent criminals, they are lying," Miranda said.