FRIDAY, JULY 31, 2026

Dear Cambridge and Somerville Constituents —

Greetings from the State House, where we are in the final hours of regular, formal sessions for the 2025-2026 legislative term.

Building on last week's vote in the House, today the Senate took up the repeal of the gestational abortion ban, and we voted to send the final bill to the Governor's desk, further protecting abortion access in Massachusetts.

We also voted to enact the final version of the Freedom To Read Act, which will effectively ban "book bans" in Massachusetts. 

Right now, I want to highlight yesterday's vote on final passage of the PROTECT Act. This is legislation I co-sponsored to better protect our immigrant neighbors and defend everyone's due process and constitutional rights in response to the ongoing fascist ICE crackdown. The final House-Senate conference bill is even stronger than the House version we passed back in March.

This landmark legislation contains the core elements of the Safe Communities Act, the Dignity Not Deportations bill, and other bills that I've co-sponsored this term and in previous terms. It represents the biggest step forward for immigrant protections in Massachusetts in living memory, and firmly establishes our Commonwealth as a national leader on immigrant rights.

The PROTECT Act also builds on other recent steps we've taken to protect and support immigrants, such as making driver's licenses available to all regardless of immigration status, making in-state tuition available to undocumented youth, maintaining the nation's only right-to-shelter program for unhoused families regardless of status, and establishing and maintaining an immigration legal defense fund in our state budget.

As I explained in my widely read blog post from earlier this year, "9 things the legislature should do in response to the ICE crackdown," advocates recognized this year that the provisions of the Safe Communities Act and other older bills didn't fully meet the current moment — so I'm pleased to report the PROTECT Act conference report acts on all of the main priorities I pushed for in response to the ICE crackdown — and it addresses the key elements of the Safe Communities Act, too.

As we celebrate this progress, I am mindful that it was only after ICE/DHS murdered two white people in Minnesota that the winds of political power shifted enough to make this legislation a reality in Massachusetts. For years, I've been on the front lines of the fight for immigrant protections. Frankly, it shouldn't have taken this long. After all, over 30 people died in ICE custody last year, and Trump was putting kids in cages at the border 8 years ago.

Having acknowledged that, I am proud to say this legislation is a major accomplishment for progressives in Massachusetts (and for anyone who believes in the principles of our constitution and our history as a nation of immigrants).

Fundamentally, the PROTECT Act separates state and local law enforcement from federal civil immigration enforcement. Here's a summary of the final bill that was sent to the Governor's desk last night:

• Prohibits state and local law enforcement from questioning people about their immigration or citizenship status or for the purposes of civil immigration enforcement. It also prohibits law enforcement from stopping a person because of their citizenship or immigration status or asking about status during a routine traffic stop.
• Codifies the Lunn decision. This is the 2017 Supreme Judicial Court ruling that established state and local enforcement cannot hold someone solely on the basis of a federal civil immigration detainer request. It is because of this ruling that Donald Trump would say Massachusetts is a "Sanctuary State."
• Designates hospitals, schools, courthouses, and childcare facilities as safe, sensitive spaces where ICE will not be able to perform warrantless arrests. Prohibits officers from performing this civil immigration enforcement at these sensitive locations, so everyone can utilize these facilities and fully participate in their communities.
• Empowers the Governor to prohibit immigration arrests and ICE operations in non-public areas of state facilities. The bill also requires multilingual guidance for agencies, private entities, law enforcement, and the public. The guidance addresses how to respond to enforcement actions, verify credentials, document interactions, and understand individual rights.
• Creates civil liability for ICE agents who violate civil rights. This means if an ICE agent violates someone's civil rights, including the civil rights of an undocumented immigrant, then the victim may sue the agent for damages in civil court. This provision holds federal agents to the same standards as municipal and state law enforcement officers, although the doctrine of qualified immunity remains a challenge in all of these cases.
• Bans 287(g) Task Force Agreements or any new agreements that would enable state or local law enforcement to perform street-level immigration enforcement. A key provision of the bill, this makes it clear that law enforcement agencies in Massachusetts will not be deputized to perform civil immigration enforcement functions or arrests in the community.
• Permits pre-arrangement of guardianship. Allows parents to set up a pre-arranged guardianship plan for their children, in the event the family is physically split up upon detention or deportation.
• Preserves authority to investigate and prosecute crime. Makes clear that limits on law enforcement’s cooperation with federal immigration enforcement do not prevent local or state officers from investigating or enforcing criminal law, including receiving personally identifying information during a lawful criminal investigation, communicating with federal authorities for purposes of conducting coordinated criminal investigations unrelated to federal civil immigration enforcement, complying with a valid judicial warrant or court order, or enforcing other federal or state laws.
• Provides oversight authority to the State Auditor. Directs the Office of the State Auditor to audit Sheriffs' departments’ activities relative to any intergovernmental service agreements with the federal government and any other immigration detention facilities located in the Commonwealth, such as the notorious federal facility in Burlington.
• Supports victims of crimes. Prioritizes the safety of immigrants who are victims of crime, including victims of human trafficking, when they are cooperating as witnesses in court proceedings. Facilitates faster processing of their special visa applications by police and prosecutors to ensure they can continue to aid in an investigation or trial.
• Establishes local custody protections. Ensures individuals held in custody at a state or county correctional facility are legally protected by mandating that they are informed in writing of certain rights, including the right to legal counsel and the right to decline interviews by state or federal law enforcement. It also requires correctional facilities to maintain a confidential phone line for calls with counsel and provide a phone number that members of the public may use to confirm that an individual is being detained and learn how to contact that person. It also requires that state and county correctional facilities limit disclosure to the minimum information necessary to confirm the location and contact information of a detained individual, and requires these facilities to maintain audit logs of access attempts and disclosures for a period of at least one year.
• Enhances workers’ rights by requiring advance notification to employees. Requires employers to inform employees when they receive a notice of inspection by ICE to verify employment eligibility verification and other employment records.

One aspect of the PROTECT Act that has generated a lot of attention on social media is the fact that it does not address the only remaining 287(g) agreement in Massachusetts. This agreement is between the state's Department of Correction (DOC) and the federal DHS. For my part, I have strongly advocated for ending this agreement, and I co-sponsored legislation to that effect. That said, I think it's important to be clear this is an "administrative agreement" that dates back to the Deval Patrick Administration, and it is different from the more commonly known 287(g) "task force" or "enforcement agreements," which the PROTECT Act now bans (see bullet point above).

Essentially, what this means is our DOC will continue to answer questions from DHS/ICE about release dates for people incarcerated in state prison. Generally speaking, people in state prison have been convicted of a felony in Massachusetts. These people are the top priority for federal immigration enforcement, and they generally have the least protection and the weakest claims in immigration court.

During discussions and deliberations on the PROTECT Act, members of the Black and Latino Caucus who drafted the bill heard from immigrant advocates and immigrants themselves — and many said they appreciated the continuation of this administrative agreement as a matter of harm reduction — otherwise, the expectation is that ICE agents will prioritize locating recently released felons, increasing the likelihood that family members and community bystanders will also be detained.

On principle, I oppose all 287(g) agreements — and I think that if a person is convicted of a felony and sentenced to prison, it doesn't mean they should also face an additional, extrajudicial punishment in the form of subsequent ICE detention and deportation proceedings. Nevertheless, I think it would be a distortion for anyone to seize upon this one element of the bill and use it to brush aside all the progress that we have made on immigrant protections in Massachusetts. Moreover, I plan to continue advocating for the termination of this last remaining 287(g) agreement in Massachusetts.

Thank you to the leaders of the Black and Latino Legislative Caucus who worked to draft the PROTECT Act and who invited me to join as a co-sponsor, and special thanks to Chairs Cahill and Vargas who led efforts to pass the bill in the House.

Thank you as well to the proud sanctuary cities of Cambridge and Somerville who have been setting an example for the entire Commonwealth on these issues. And thanks as well to all my colleagues and constituents who pushed for this action, to all the advocates at MIRA, the ACLU, Centro Presente, La Colaborativa, et al., and to local organizations like the Welcome Project and the LUCE network, whose members show up when there are reports of ICE activity in our neighborhoods.  

Yours in service,

Mike