Why the Mass. AG has sued Trump 9 times

She pledged to fight President Donald Trump if he broke the law. Then, she moved to the part of Massachusetts where Trump enjoys the most support.

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell has sued the Trump administration nine times since moving to the South Coast a few months ago.

Her office has led or joined lawsuits targeting Trump’s plan to slash federal programs. She has also denounced Trump’s immigration crackdown and his attacks on diversity initiatives. And she’s joined a lawsuit defending birthright citizenship — a key issue for the South Coast, with its high share of immigrants.

The attorney general sat down in her agency’s New Bedford satellite office for a recent interview with The Light. She bought a home in Dartmouth late last year to live closer to family, and she currently splits her time between working in Boston, New Bedford, and other satellite offices around the state.

Campbell said Trump’s policies have been worse than she expected.

“We have fought back every step of the way against all these unlawful actions with the hopes of restoring that funding to help folks with a whole range of issues — but most importantly, their household bills,” she said.

Campbell says Trump’s agenda has failed to address the biggest challenge her constituents face — an issue the president ran on: “The number one issue that we’re hearing about is everything is too expensive,” she said. 

Wages haven’t kept up with the price of housing, utilities, and child care. Trump pledged to lower costs, but Campbell said his cuts to federal funding for medical research, education, and public health will only widen the gap.

Fighting funding cuts

Since his inauguration in January, Trump has ordered drastic cuts to the federal workforce and federal funding. He tapped billionaire Elon Musk to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a controversial initiative tasked with identifying and rooting out inefficiency.

The attorney general said she supports cutting red tape.

“You can do that lawfully, without firing thousands of people, taking away their jobs, taking away the livelihood of their families, doing it with very little notice or no notice at all, and without stealing taxpayers’ sensitive information,” she said.

Campbell has joined coalitions of other attorneys general in a series of lawsuits, arguing that Trump’s plan is harmful and the president doesn’t have the legal authority to make these sweeping changes unilaterally.

Days after Trump was inaugurated, they sued over the administration’s pause on nearly all federal grants. Since then, Campbell and other attorneys general have challenged funding cuts to the National Institutes of Health, the termination of federal grants for teacher training, the mass firing of probationary federal employees, and the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education.

Campbell joined another lawsuit this week in a bid to stop the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from terminating $11 billion in public health grants. Massachusetts stands to lose about $118 million in funding for services including children’s vaccines and mental health care, according to a press release.

In announcing the lawsuits, Campbell’s office said the administration was cutting critical services that Massachusetts depends on.

In most of the cases, judges have issued temporary restraining orders or injunctions, which block the administration’s policies while the cases move through the courts.

Musk’s DOGE initiative is one of Campbell’s top concerns, and the focus of two of her lawsuits. 

“Everyone should be absolutely concerned about a billionaire who has been unelected, where it’s still unclear what role he plays and what he has access to.”

In one case, 19 attorneys general are fighting Trump’s decision to grant DOGE access to Americans’ private financial data. Earlier this year, DOGE gained access to the U.S. Treasury’s central payment system, which holds sensitive financial information for millions of Americans, including bank account and Social Security numbers.

It’s not clear why Musk needs this information to make the government more efficient, Campbell said. 

“All I know is when people have access to your data and your information — based on the work we’re doing in our own office, and we have a whole division dedicated to this — they can use it for unscrupulous means to harm you.”

A judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking DOGE in February.

Another case targets Trump’s authority to create DOGE and give Musk the power to run it. In February, Campbell and 13 other attorneys general argued that Trump violated the Constitution by creating a new department without approval from Congress, and that Trump can’t appoint Musk without Senate confirmation.

‘People who are innocent’

Campbell has spoken out against the administration’s immigration policies. She said she sees it as her job to defend people who are here lawfully.

The scope of Trump’s plan to deport millions of immigrants is bound to result in mistakes, she said.

“Threatening mass deportations, which will of course round up people who are innocent and here lawfully and who are indeed citizens, is cruel to say the least,” she said.

The Light’s interview took place just before U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 370 people in Massachusetts as part of a statewide sweep. The agency said the people arrested were “illegal aliens,” including 205 people with “significant criminal convictions or charges.”

At least eight men were arrested in New Bedford as part of the operation, The Light previously reported. In one raid, agents used a battering ram to break down the door of a home on Viall Street while teenagers were present.

Campbell criticized the sweep in a statement provided last week.

“This office welcomes federal partnership that supports our work to hold drug and gun traffickers accountable,” she stated. “But indiscriminate arrests of people with no criminal charges or convictions don’t make us safer — they just incite fear and wrongly push our law-abiding, hardworking immigrants into the shadows.” 

In January, the attorney general joined a lawsuit to block Trump’s executive order that would end birthright citizenship.

A provision in the 14th Amendment automatically grants citizenship to anyone who is born in the U.S. “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Trump has argued that the provision doesn’t extend citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants, but many legal scholars have rejected the president’s interpretation.

Campbell sides with the scholars. She said Trump’s attempt to redefine citizenship is “one way to get at deporting people unlawfully.”

She said she sees the order as part of a broader attempt to dismantle the Constitution.

“If they can, with the markings of a pen in an executive order, eradicate the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, folks better be aware that they can do the same with every other right that they take for granted,” she said.

A judge granted a preliminary injunction blocking Trump’s order. The president has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to limit judges’ authority to block his actions nationwide.

Putting money back in people’s pockets

Trump isn’t doing enough to address one of the largest expenses Massachusetts residents are facing, Campbell said. “I don’t see what he’s doing to help with housing policy,” she said. “We would love some support from the federal administration on housing.”

Instead, Campbell said, Trump’s economic policies will make housing more unaffordable. She thinks the uncertainty created by the president’s tariff threats will keep interest rates high, which would make it more expensive for homebuyers to get a mortgage and for homebuilders to create new housing.

The attorney general created a housing affordability unit in her office last year. It’s tasked with enforcing state housing laws like the MBTA Communities Act and fair housing protections. The unit also runs a program to revamp vacant properties.

“I think the biggest concern I have — even bigger than Trump and bigger than all the other issues — is folks don’t really have a clue of the ways in which our office every day is trying to help them,” she said.

Campbell’s office investigates consumer, workplace, and civil rights complaints. She emphasized her office’s consumer protection work, which can help secure restitution for victims of theft and scams.

“We do all of that work for our constituents, saving them millions of dollars every single year,” she said. “That does not demonize immigrants in the process.”

Her office recently prosecuted a New Bedford man who was collecting fake apartment deposits, mostly from the city’s immigrant community. Victor Tiu Lopez stole $20,400 through the scam, the attorney general’s office said. Late last year, he was sentenced to four years in the House of Correction and one year of probation.

The case took longer than she would have liked, Campbell said, and a “shortcoming” was that the judge did not award restitution to the victims.

The attorney general encouraged readers to reach out to her office if they have an issue with a business or employer. Even people living in this country without legal status can “absolutely” contact her office for help, she said.

Moving to Dartmouth

Campbell, along with her husband and two sons, has been getting settled in her new house in Dartmouth.

Her move this year was surprising for a politician with such deep roots in Boston — she served on the Boston City Council and ran for mayor there in 2021. At the time, some speculated that she was getting ready to run for U.S. Rep. Bill Keating’s 9th district seat when Keating, 72, eventually retires. But Campbell, 42, told the Boston Globe she moved to be closer to family, not for political reasons.

Republican candidates have slowly been gaining popularity on the South Coast for years, and a MAGA surge swept the area in the 2024 election. Trump received 48% of Bristol County votes in November, compared to 36% in Massachusetts as a whole.

Dartmouth fits the regional trend. In 2024, the town went for Kamala Harris over Trump by just 60 votes.

Campbell said she appreciates living in a place where so many people voted for Trump. She said she’s willing to have a conversation with anyone regardless of their political affiliation, and she challenged readers to do the same.

“It makes all of us stronger, and for me at least, a better AG and a better leader,” she said.

Email Grace Ferguson at gferguson@newbedfordlight.org

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