Pro-immigrant rally hits the Hill
Protesters want protections kept in state budget
Protesters snaked through the State House yesterday, echoing pro-immigrant chants and songs through the building, pressing House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo and Gov. Charlie Baker to retain in the state budget a slate of immigrant protections passed by the Senate.
The advocacy group Massachusetts Safe Communities Coalition handdelivered messages to DeLeo, Baker and members of the conference committee negotiating what parts of the House and Senate budget survive in a final agreement.
“We may be far from a border, but there are many people in this state who need protection from being deported, many people are seeking asylum,” said the Rev. Lisa Perry-Wood of the First Parish Church in Bedford.
The Senate measures bar police from asking people’s citizenship status, require notice of a right to have a lawyer present for an ICE interview, keep the state from using resources for any federal immigration registry and prohibit state agencies from collaborating with federal immigration officials. Currently, sheriffs in Barnstable, Bristol and Plymouth cooperate with ICE through the so-called 287(g) agreements, as does the Massachusetts Department of Correction. ICE spokesman John Mohan said eliminating the existing agreements “will be detrimental to the public safety.”
Baker’s office said he “opposes sanctuary state” and the budget amendments do not ensure law enforcement can work with federal immigration officials to “detain violence and dangerous officials” as legislation he introduced would.
Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley said yesterday in a statement he’s long respected political and legal authority.
“But, I cannot be silent when our country’s immigration policy destroys families, traumatizes parents and terrorizes children,” O’Malley said. “The harmful and unjust policy of separating children from their parents must be ended.”