First-term Democrat Healey has been an outspoken critic of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency as it carries out the hardline policies of President Donald Trump. In January, Healey announced new executive orders that she said would rein in ICE in Massachusetts. One nominally prohibits ICE agents from carrying out enforcement in spaces like churches and schools, and the other prohibits any future 287(g) agreements with ICE – an arrangement that allows local law enforcement to carry out immigration enforcement – “unless there is a public safety need.”
“Let’s be clear about what’s happening," said Healey. "Over the past year, President Trump has sent federal agents into communities, cities, and states around the country, and what we have seen week after week, month after month, are federal agents instigating, antagonizing, and, yes, causing violence in communities. People have been killed. Others have been shot. We've seen mothers and fathers ripped out of cars and from the arms of their children. United States citizens have been stopped, arrested and detained their homes broken into without a warrant.”
She reiterated that stance to WAMC in Pittsfield Tuesday during a swing through Berkshire County to make a series of policy announcements.
“I can certainly say that ICE’s tactics have, as I say, been illegal and unconstitutional and not consistent with the way any good law enforcement agency should be acting,” said the governor.
However, activists say Healey’s vocal resistance to ICE is much thinner under close examination.
Wendy Penner is a member of Greylock Together, a Northern Berkshire County progressive organization that formed after President Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 election.
“We try to support the ambitions and dreams of our members about how they want to show up to meet this moment in community and push back against the onset of fascism in our country,” she told WAMC.
“We are the only blue state in the country that has one of these 287(g) agreements, which is basically agreeing to allow our law enforcement to cooperate with ICE, to refer people who are undocumented to ICE, to share data with ICE,” Penner explained.
Fernando León is a community organizer with Berkshire Interfaith Organizing, which works closely with Greylock Together.
“What it does is deputize local police to have some immigration enforcement capabilities," he said. "And that is problematic, because collaborations in this moment seems just like acceptance.”
Penner says Healey should follow the example of fellow Democratic governors like Maryland’s Wes Moore, who signed a bill into law this week that will end all existent 287(g) agreements by July as well as banning law enforcement in the state from entering into any new ones. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has proposed similar legislation.
“The governor has touted her credentials around how strongly anti-ICE she is, how she wants to not be supporting them in any way- And yet, I think we very much are complicit in some of the harms that they're causing by being in this agreement with them, and I'm disappointed, and I think many others in our group are by her lack of addressing that, and I think there's more that she can do, other than just talking tough.”
Retired history professor Carrie Waara is a member of Greylock Together’s Immigrant Support Action Team.
“One month after we began organizing our group was when ICE showed up in Berkshire County, primarily in the Pittsfield and South County area, and we immediately acted to address the needs of those families who were affected by that hideous- Well, they took them away, they disappeared our neighbors and friends, and we raised funds to find legal support for them,” she said.
Waara says the actions Healey took against ICE in January don’t match either the moment or her own rhetoric.
“When I read Governor Healey's executive orders, I was really angry because it felt like it was window dressing and did not have teeth behind it," she told WAMC. "There was no enforcement mechanism in those executive orders to actually create change, especially because if all she's doing is preventing future 287(g) agreements, what does that do for Massachusetts now for the people who are being taken and detained and fed into that pipeline that gets them deported to countries they've never lived in before?”
When the activists learned that Healey’s Berkshire County tour included a stop in North Adams, it was an opportunity they couldn’t pass up.
Greylock Together quickly drafted a letter directed to Healey over her ICE policies, and gathered over 400 signatures in short order. Penner says it calls for Massachusetts to fully end all 287(g) agreements and to create a portal for people to report harms committed by ICE, with the end goal of using that as grounds to hold the agency responsible for any criminal conduct in the commonwealth.
“The third provision of the letter was to make the ending of 287(g) agreements durable by committing to not reinstituting them in the future," Penner said. "Because what she did say in her executive order is no new 287(g) agreements. We want her to abolish this one and to commit to no future agreements.”
León says the more disturbing factor is the financial incentive behind detentions in the United States. The only prison in Massachusetts to actively rent beds to ICE for detainment purposes is the Plymouth County Correctional Facility, which offers over 500 to the federal agency.
“There are hundreds of people that are being detained, and they are being held temporarily in Plymouth before they are shipped to other states’ private detention centers. So, Plymouth is being used like a springboard to feed these other detention centers that are privately owned by CoreCivic and GEO [Group]. One of the things that we have to have in consideration, and I will say to people, is just follow the money. A lot of these companies, their stocks doubled once that Trump won the election.”
With letter in hand and signatures attached, the activists then plotted how to best impart their message to Healey during her North Adams stop.
“We could have shown up with 100 people," León said. "So, we choose to show up with a limited number, because we do think it's fine to engage the governor in good faith, to have a conversation first.”
León worked his way up to Healey, delivered the letter, and said he appreciated the governor for hearing him out. He wants to continue the conversation with her office, because from his perspective, it’s the most important conversation of the second Trump era.
“The situation is new for like Democrats and Republicans as well," León told WAMC. "So, I think sometimes, Governor Healey is trying to appease the federal government, but there is no appeasing an authoritarian regime. They will always come back for more. So, this is not just about immigrants. It's about protecting due process and civil liberties for everyone.”
After the initial airing and publication of this story, WAMC received the following statement from a Healey administration spokesperson:
"Governor Healey appreciated the opportunity to speak with local activists in North Adams and thanked them for their commitment to protecting our communities. She agrees that ICE's tactics are dangerous and unlawful, and it's why she has led a strong and coordinated response to President Trump and ICE. She took executive action to prohibit ICE from using state property and stop new 287(g) agreements. She is getting ICE out of courthouses, schools, hospitals and places of worship, preventing other Governors from sending their National Guard to Massachusetts, and giving parents peace of mind that their children will be cared for no matter what. She has forcefully opposed ICE’s use of private flights to deport people out of Massachusetts airports and the new ICE warehouse proposed in nearby New Hampshire.
The current 287(g) agreement with the Massachusetts Department of Correction is limited to allowing notifications to ICE only when someone has been convicted of a serious crime, sentenced to prison, and are set to be released after being afforded full due process and a legal defense under our constitution. This is in line with policies in effect in other states including California, New York, Minnesota, and Washington. The Governor will continue to engage on this issue and work with advocates on the best ways we can protect people from the damage ICE is doing in our communities."
