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President-elect Donald Trump likely doesn’t realize it, but when he talks about mass deportations, he conjures frightening images for members of New Bedford’s immigrant community. Some were there, or know people who were, or have heard stories about the bitter cold March 6, 2007, when federal agents descended on a factory in the South End.
Helena DaSilva Hughes, who was executive director of the Immigrants’ Assistance Center then and is president now, said she remembers watching it all from a window of a New Bedford Police command trailer, where she sought shelter from single-digit temperatures.
Dozens of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents moved in and out of the four-story brick Michael Bianco Inc. factory on West Rodney French Boulevard, bringing out one person after another to be escorted onto white buses and driven off. They must have filled five or six buses with people who were making backpacks and belts for the U.S. military at minimum wage or less, DaSilva Hughes recalled.
ICE rounded up 361 workers for being in the country illegally. The move created turmoil in dozens of families and left emotional imprints that last to this day, including lingering suspicions about police.
New Bedford officers were only handling traffic control that day, not going into the factory or making arrests, but that point may not reassure immigrant community members, Hughes said.
“All they know is they saw New Bedford police,” DaSilva Hughes said. “They looked at the State Police escorting” people into the buses. “They saw them all working together.”
In Massachusetts, public officials began to draw lines between federal, state and local roles in immigration enforcement very soon after Trump was elected on Nov. 5 for a second term. For months he has talked about deporting millions, starting with people who have criminal records.
Two days after the election, Gov. Maura Healey told an interviewer that the State Police would “absolutely not” take part in deportations.
In the weeks since then, local chiefs of police and county sheriffs have said they would not round up people or hold them for immigration enforcement, if only because state law gives them no authority to do so.
Early this month, the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association released a two-page “legal advisory” making clear that under state law established in a 2017 ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the role local authorities can play in detaining people for immigration enforcement is simple: none.
The statement summarized the court opinion and key terms, making clear that local authorities — including police and sheriff’s officials — do not have the power to arrest people for federal immigration enforcement.
The advisory noted that under the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the federal government cannot compel states to enforce “federal regulatory programs, including immigration enforcement.”
However, state law does not ban all cooperation with immigration enforcement. Bristol County Sheriff Paul Heroux and New Bedford Police Chief Paul Oliveira both say they are willing to provide information to ICE if requested. And Oliveira says he won’t prevent police officers from volunteering information to ICE.
Exceptions: ICE agreements
The exception not mentioned in the police chiefs’ advisory would be those agencies holding formal agreements to work with ICE.
At the moment, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, two agencies in the state have such agreements: the state Department of Correction, and the Plymouth County Sheriff’s Office.
The Department of Correction has a so-called “287g” agreement that allows its officials to work under ICE supervision on immigration enforcement, including making arrests. The Plymouth County Sheriff’s Office has a service agreement to house immigration detainees at the jail and correctional center in Plymouth.
Plymouth County Sheriff Joseph D. McDonald Jr. said his agency this fall renewed the agreement through September 2029. He said he did not consider dropping it.
“It’s something I believe enhances public safety,” he said. “It’s a duty I have to the community.”
A sheriff’s public information officer said that the Plymouth County Correctional Facility’s inmate population changes daily, but in early January there were 407 ICE detainees out of 897 people there. Along with people in civil detention for immigration proceedings, the facility — which can accommodate up to 1,140 men — also houses men serving sentences and in pre-trial detention on state criminal charges, and men detained for the U.S. Marshals Service.
The Bristol County Sheriff’s Office had both types of agreements with ICE until 2021, when the Biden administration severed the arrangements. That move came after an uprising at the ICE detention center in North Dartmouth in May 2020.
A report by the state attorney general found that officers under then-Sheriff Thomas M. Hodgson — an outspoken Trump supporter who considered immigration enforcement a key part of his work — used excessive force and violated the civil rights of detainees. Hodgson backed his officers and dismissed the report as politically motivated.
In his successful 2022 campaign against Hodgson, Sheriff Paul Heroux said he would not pursue immigration enforcement activity. He’s standing by that position.
The former immigration detention center, at the Bristol County Jail and House of Correction complex in North Dartmouth, has been renovated and recently opened as a training academy and offices. In a media gathering for the opening in November, Heroux told reporters that if ICE asks for information on people in custody, he would provide it, but that’s all.
“The federal government has an important job to do,” Heroux told reporters at the training center, but “we’re not going to do their job for them.”
Barnstable County Sheriff Donna Buckley, also elected in 2022, took a similar position during her campaign against Republican state Rep. Timothy R. Whelan. In her first official act in office, the Democrat severed the 287g contract her agency had with ICE.
Immigration enforcement is “not the work of the sheriff’s office,” Buckley said in a recent interview. “It was more of a political statement than an effort at public safety… It caused people unnecessarily to live in fear.”
ACLU: Trump calling for “blatantly illegal” actions
While it’s clear that most local authorities in Massachusetts have no role in arresting or holding immigration detainees, other questions about how state and local agencies will respond to immigration enforcement are more murky, or may have to be settled in court.
Daniel McFadden, a managing attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, said it’s too early to say how the new Trump administration will try to use local resources in immigration enforcement. Part of the complication, McFadden said, is that many actions Trump suggested during the campaign would be “blatantly illegal.”
He mentioned Trump’s call for invoking the Alien Enemies Act, a 1798 law giving the president authority to detain non-citizens, and his support for revoking birthright citizenship.
McFadden said the Alien Enemies Act applies only when the country is in a declared war or under invasion. Birthright citizenship is established by the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
McFadden also said Trump would be breaking the law if he were to follow through on his stated support for using the military to enforce immigration law.
This point is more complicated. While the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 bars the federal government from using the military to enforce federal policies, there are exceptions.
According to the Brennan Center for Justice, federal law allows federal troops, including federalized National Guard, to “assist” in law enforcement, including providing equipment, but not performing basic law enforcement. Federal law also allows the president to ask, but not require, that governors deploy their states’ National Guard to perform certain federal missions free from restrictions of the Posse Comitatus Act.
If governors do not comply, it’s possible that the president could still activate state National Guard troops. Some legal scholars argue that he could use the Insurrection Act to do this.
Healey has unequivocally opposed using the State Police for immigration enforcement, but has not taken a public stand on using the state National Guard for this purpose. Her press office did not respond to requests for comment.
Caught between cooperation, community
New Bedford Police Chief Paul Oliveira said some aspects of working with ICE are a matter of cooperation with another law enforcement agency. That includes providing information if ICE asks for it.
“If they reached out as a federal partner,” asking “’what’s this guy’s last known address’ … I’m not going to take a stance that we won’t cooperate with a federal law enforcement agency,” Oliveira said. He said he would not object to his officers volunteering information if they thought ICE would need it.
“I’m not going to put a directive out and say ‘don’t reach out to ICE,’” Oliveira said.
At the same time, Oliveira said he wants to sustain what he and DaSilva Hughes both say is a good relationship between city police and the city’s immigrant community.
DaSilva Hughes, who has been with the IAC since 1984, said the organization has worked with a number of police chiefs, but Oliveira has made the most robust effort to connect with the Spanish-speaking community.
She said Oliveira has attended church with IAC advocates, hired bilingual officers, and attended community meetings. He testified in favor of a state law adopted last year allowing residents to apply for a driver’s license regardless of their immigration status.
In early December, both Oliveira and Heroux visited the IAC in the South End to deliver presentations on their role in federal immigration enforcement.
DaSilva Hughes said 10 to 20 people attended. She said she expects both officials to be back to discuss immigration enforcement.
“It’s important that the community is being protected,” DaSilva Hughes said. “Our fear is that all this work we’ve done with the police is going to go away” if Trump conducts the deportation program he has described.
Oliveira is mostly reserving comment now, as the campaign rhetoric has not yet met the complicated legal and political realities of implementing mass deportations. McFadden, of the ACLU, said the civil proceedings of a deportation can take months to more than a year.
The cost of the expansive program Trump has described has been estimated at tens or even hundreds of billions a year.
Heightened anxiety reflecting the rhetoric
DaSilva Hughes said much of the anxiety in the immigrant community seems related to Trump’s harsh rhetoric on immigration. The hardline remarks have been a signature of his political brand since he emerged as a presidential candidate in 2015.
Trump has denigrated migrants as criminals, called the surge at the southern border an “invasion,” and blamed illegal immigration for taking jobs from American citizens and contributing to a housing shortage that has raised rents and home prices.
While Trump’s rhetoric has established his tough-guy persona, his record of immigration action, as measured by people removed from the country, falls short of, or is about on par with, the more soft-spoken approach taken by his predecessor, Barack Obama, and successor, President Joe Biden.
According to PolitiFact, a fact-checking operation, the Trump administration from fiscal years 2017 to 2020 — including four months of the Obama administration — recorded 2 million people sent out of the country. That includes cases handled under three different procedures: removals (usually considered synonymous with deportation), returns, and expulsions (under a pandemic-related public safety measure from 2020 to 2023).
From 2009 to 2012 — including four months of the Bush administration — the Obama administration deported 3.2 million people. During Obama’s second term, there were 2.1 million deportations.
According to a Migration Policy Institute report in July, the Biden administration’s deportations record — not including returns or pandemic-related expulsion — was on pace to match Trump’s.
But, it was all done without the Trump bluster, which sent shivers through many longtime members of New Bedford’s immigrant community and evoked memories of the Bianco raid.
DaSilva Hughes said advocates were caught off guard in 2007, but that experience has helped to provide a playbook for response, including a 19-page guide for families to prepare for emergencies.
Asked what keeps her up at night, she answered with a word: “Raids. I’ve witnessed it. That’s what keeps me up at night. Are we going to be able to protect them?”
Email reporter Arthur Hirsch at ahirsch@newbedfordlight.org
I find it ironic that we are supposed to be a nation of laws and federal law supercedes state law but here in Massachusetts the Tories in charge think they are above all that. To have a law that says our law enforcement can not help federal law enforcement is more liberal insanity. Just like the legislature passes chapter 135 that is a complete violation of the Supreme Court Bruen ruling, and they knew this before passing it, stripos the citizens of this Commonwealth of their guaranteed Second Amendment rights. What is wrong with the politicians in this state???? They pick and choose what laws they want to follow???? Insanity.
State and local police have their hands full just doing their routine job, let alone adding another burden. So if Trump has his way and local and state police are engaged in enforcing immigration laws, how will they have time to deal with state and local crime?
Regarding flaunting laws, no one is more guilty of that than Donald Trump. He doesn’t believe that the laws applies to him and it will worst in his second term as he seeks vengence against his perceived adversaries.
There is also a humanitarian aspect to this including the separation of families and the trama that children will experience as their parents are torn away from them. There are many cases where undocumented immigrants are married to US citizens and the children are American born. What will happen to these families?
PS: state law does not preclude assistance to federal authorities related to immigrants who engage in criminal activity.
Let’s start with Trump a convicted Felon of 37 counts an accused Sexual Offender he should be in Jail but having money and connections keeps him out of prison.
ron, you reverberate the lawfare narrative. anyone getting their news or history from the mainstream media would know its a sham, get informed please.
If there is any justice left within the thoroughly democrat corrupted United States system …Joe Biden will die in prison for his treasonous crimes against the United States … from deliberately opening America’s borders to criminal organizations and terror cells to actively allowing his Chinese Communist Party puppet masters to infiltrate all levels of American intelligence agencies as well as our largest defense contractors and top academic centers. Biden has been a China paid lackey and stooge since his days in the US Senate and worked hard for them a chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
May the Traitor Joe Biden and his filthy, reprobate Bag Man son; Hunter, received the severest retribution possible from a Trump Justice department.
That’s what Democrats do best, they’re just as good at over taxing the middle class to fund the needs of the welfare class, like Obamacare and his affordable Care Act / Scam, all he did was force health insurance companies to cover everyone and increase the costs for the middle class working Americans to pay for the lazy, useless alcoholics, drug addicts, and high school dropouts who can’t get a job with benefits. The Democrats in Massachusetts do the same with Mass Health and Medicaid giving free healthcare to illegal immigrants and unemployed people who don’t want to work for a living and support themselves, they prefer to have someone else pay for them, that’s what happens when you have no dignity or self respect.
Taxing the billionaires and top 2% at the same levels Nixon did would alleviate the tax burden on the middle class. There is enough pie if we share more fairly.
Well said Carol.
If you tax the wealthy they will simply provide jobs out of the country
That’s the typical Democrat way, they don’t care that a large percentage of the illegal immigrants have criminal records, or that some have molested and raped American women and under age girls, DaSilva Hughes and the ACLU only care about protecting the criminals and making sure their rights aren’t violated while they’re in our country illegally.
The raids on facilities that employ illegal immigrants should be occuring daily across America, and a system like E-verify should be federal law regardless of the number of employees work for every business large and small, and illegal immigrants shouldn’t be rewarded by allowing them to get a driver’s license, instead of making life more difficult for people who enter America illegally, these liberal socialist Democrats bend over backwards to Mike life easier for them, and they should be removed from serving in any elected office if they’re going to cater to illegal immigrants. Fortunately, President Trump, Tom Homan, and ICE will begin to change that in 8 days.
As Helena daSilva Hughes describes it, the word, “Raids” conjures up images of that infamous day in 2007 when the Bianco factory was swarmed by ICE agents.
The shocking news spread quickly, and our community
was outraged and sprang into action in support of the factory workers.
What I remember the most was the frigid cold and wind and the terrified faces of family members and friends who waited across the street from where the buses were lined up.
My late husband and I joined scores of volunteers who wanted to help. We ended up serving as translators in the crowded church basement where the scene was simply chaotic.
Children were crying for their mothers, husbands for their wives, and neighbors left to care for children whose mothers were taken away.
Our congessional delegation spent time listening to families describe the horror of that day, and it was painful for me to realize that this cruelty was perpetrated by our own government.
Judging by the outpouring of community support for those families that day and in the months that followed, it is clear that ICE is not welcomed here.
These folks were not criminals and did not pose a threat to public safety. They were, and still are, a vital part of our community who go to work every day and contribute in countless ways.
It is shameful that they have to live in fear
whats more shameful is HIDING and we have normalized illegal immigration. that midset causes conflict that extend beyond
the immigrants who did not come here (or stay here) the right way.
when there are housing crisis exponentially worse for or citizens.
hospitals and schools are overloaded.
insurance is so dilluted because it cant support this influx. my own kids cant get an apartment who pay taxes and work. there a good people doing the immigration thing wrong, they suffer and we suffer. our police should not pick and choose which laws to enforce. our governor is the worst offender blowing our budgets on a crisis easily solved.
1843 General laws: Part 1:Title XV: Section 102.
“(a) All persons within the commonwealth, regardless of sex, race, color, creed or national origin, shall have, except as is otherwise provided or permitted by law, the same rights enjoyed by white male citizens, tomake and enforce contracts, to inherit, purchase, to lease, sell, hold and convey real and personal property, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.
If the white Supremacists are correct that the white man is supreme, this law acknowledges that and that should make them happy.
By mass law we are all like them.
1843 General laws: Part 1:Title XV: Section 102.
“(a) All persons within the commonwealth, regardless of sex, race, color, creed or national origin, shall have, except as is otherwise provided or permitted by law, the same rights enjoyed by white male citizens, tomake and enforce contracts, to inherit, purchase, to lease, sell, hold and convey real and personal property, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.”
If the white Supremacists are correct that the white man is supreme, this law acknowledges that and that should make them happy.
By mass law we are all like them.
It refers to residents.
states rights?
Great job in turning the illegal immigrant problem into a black & white racial issue, the simple fact is Biden opened the borders and allowed immigrants to enter our nation illegally, and that may not bother you, but I don’t like the fact that state and federal tax dollars are being wasted on people who crossed our borders illegally. And as far as families being separated, that’s too bad, the illegal immigrants took that chance, and are taking advantage of American tax dollars out of our economy and sending money back to their third world countries with zero benefit to our cities, and states across America. If they were truly seeking asylum, they could have obtained in Mexico, not that’s not what they want, they want to bypass the legal immigration process and enter America illegally for financial gain in the richest nation on earth, and for that, when they are caught, locked up in detention centers, and deported, they get no sympathy from me or any other tax payer with an ounce of common sense.
Let the largest deportation operation of illegal immigrants begin, January 21, can’t come soon enough.
so massachusetts is a commwealth. you can expect higher cost of living. you shoukd not expect to carry the financial burdens of illegal crossings with open arms. we should be supporting the real laws and not the govenors version of moral laws which is extremely unethical . she gotta go
I’m all for the raids. Follow the law and don’t put yourself in these situations. We have an absolute right to control who enters our country and how, as well as who is allowed to stay.
Given your reasoning, the illegal immigrants who intruded into the new world and massacred the residents of the land, should have been deported and/or convicted of crimes of inhumanity, but it didn’t happen.
You mean the founding fathers who drafted the bill of rights and the constitution? Those weren’t illegal immigrants, there were no immigration laws in North America, and if we listen to your reasoning, there would be no new world discovered because the planet was flat, and if you sailed too close to the edge, your ship would fall off the edge.
Thank you for making me laugh!!!!
AGREED 100%
As a faith leader in the New Bedford Community I try to understand our contemporary environment in light of our scriptures (in my case, the Bible). More progressive Christians, like me, find significant differences of understanding of the Bible with our more conservative siblings often, but here is a place we can find significant agreement. I would encourage those interested in the intersection of faith and immigration to read Dr. Danny Carroll’s book — The Bible and Boarders: Hearing God’s Word on Immigration. Carroll is no liberal, he is an evangelical scholar who’s understanding of the themes of migration and immigration are Biblically based. Support the evil, anti-Christian Trump policies if you must, but for me and my house “we will serve the Lord.”
reverand…we see that everyone respects christianity like we do. the progressive christian picks and chooses the bible chapter and verse.
i dont mean the catholics or protestants. technically christ was a mystic who set the word and intention strait. he taught was HOW TO THINK , not what to think
Anyone who assists illegal immigrants is breaking the law. They should be prosecuted.
We have too many people and not enough housing or resources. We can’t be the world’s crazy cat lady, loading the house with strays. It’s not healthy. I’m not a Republican or a Democrat. I’m not interested in race or nationality. The fact of the matter is we have too many people coming in and not enough land, housing, resources, etc. I don’t want to pay for them. I don’t want to build more housing for them and destroy our natural areas. We simply can’t afford them.
The media tries to tell us we’re “a nation of immigrants” as if it’s still the old Ellis Island days. The people coming over are here to take advantage of the system. A group hops over, gets on assistance while working under the table, figures it out and tells the rest of the fam how to do it. They pollute, don’t appreciate or respect the land, their kids don’t know how to behave. It’s bad out there and it was all invited here on purpose so politicians could feel better and terrible corporations could use illegal labor. They need to go, like now.
NewBedfordLight should update this article addressing the executive orders promulgated within the first week of the new admin; the one where Dep. Homeland Sec. is now able to deputize local and state LEOs (how do we find out if this happened in Ma), and the one declaring an invasion at the S. border (a point brought up in the article). These issues are relevant and change things.