When ICE carried out President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration agenda and detained around a dozen community members in Berkshire County last March, Democrat Tricia Farley-Bouvier didn’t mince words.
“You can't help but hear the echoes of the Holocaust in this when people are being rounded up and put in detention, maybe taken far away, disappeared from the community without due process," she told WAMC. "I don't know how you don't think that. These are not criminals. We are just tearing apart families. And we have to stand up. We have to stand up and say, this is not right.”
After ICE’s enforcement campaign in Minneapolis this winter left two civilians shot dead by federal agents, the fury directed at the agency — especially in Democratic strongholds like Massachusetts — has only grown more forceful.
“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," said Democratic Gov. Maura Healey. “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.”
Healey has issued executive orders aimed at restraining ICE in Massachusetts, and she has called on privately owned airlines to stop offering ICE deportation flights out of the commonwealth.
Meanwhile, in Berkshire County, a Pittsfield armored vehicle manufacturer has enjoyed a lucrative relationship with the federal government during the Trump administration’s second term. Independent journalist Bill Shein of Reason Gone Mad explored how Lenco has profited during the Trump era.
“They've been growing very rapidly," he told WAMC. "They are about 150 employees now. They have a sizable federal business since 2017, they've done about $140 million in business with the federal government.”
Some of that work is with ICE — and it’s enough to distinguish Lenco as the No. 1 contractor with the agency in Massachusetts since Trump’s second swearing in.
“They are the top recipient of new contracting with ICE since January 20, 2025. So, about $5.2 million in new contracts," Shein explained. "They have had business with ICE going back to 2017, about $16 million as part of that larger federal business that they have.”
The Lenco BearCat, specifically, has become ubiquitous with ICE’s identity and operations — from recruiting videos and promotional ads to the streets of American cities like Minneapolis.
“They've used the vehicles in responses to protests in Chicago," said Shein. "They certainly use them on some immigration raids, but they become prominent in their social media posts that they've used for a variety of things to show their increasingly militarized esthetic of immigration enforcement.”
Lenco has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in state aid from the Healey administration in recent years. One $200,000 grant announced in September 2024 came from the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, and Lenco received another $145,000 through the state’s Workforce Training Fund Program in June of 2025.
WAMC asked the governor about Lenco and its ICE contracts while she swung through Pittsfield on a policy announcement tour this month.
“Well, I'd like to know more information about this particular company, so, we should get more information," said Healey. "And, look, I issued an executive order last week- I don't want state resources used to support ICE. What ICE is doing right now, it's just been terrible. It's been horrible for communities, for families, for cities, for states around the country, and I've been really clear about that. That's why I issued the executive order to ban ICE from a number of places, to make sure that state resources weren't being used. And I'll take a look at that particular matter, but I certainly would encourage any company to refrain from doing business in any way with ICE right now, I mean, who's acting in ways that are illegal, unlawful and unconstitutional.”
For Farley-Bouvier, who has represented Pittsfield in the State House for around 15 years, Lenco, its success, and its meaning to Pittsfield paint a complicated picture.
“I go back to my days on the city council, and if I have the timing right, I certainly think of our troops being sent over to Iraq without the proper equipment and armor, and Lenco was part of that solution, and we were all so proud at that time to be from Pittsfield and have a company in Pittsfield very much part of the solution for that,” she told WAMC.
The 2nd Berkshire District Democrat says her thinking about armored vehicles being used on American streets has changed over the years.
“We are now in a time where our democracy itself is being threatened, and in times like this, we are far past partisanship. And while I don't expect a private company to change their business model depending on which party is in the White House at one time or another — I don't expect that at all, and I've never gotten myself involved in any decision making of a company before — I just think right now, each and every one of us has to look at any decisions that are within our own control and decide which side of history that we're going to be on,” explained Farley-Bouvier.
With that, the state representative told WAMC she was taking a step she hasn’t taken in her state legislative career.
“I am doing something I've never done before, and I call on the Lenco company to not take further contracts with the Department of Homeland Security, that which inevitably would be part of the ICE operations,” she told WAMC.
Farley-Bouvier stressed that her stance was not a call for Lenco to abandon active contracts with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security or ICE.
Her Democratic State House colleague of the 3rd Berkshire District, Leigh Davis of Great Barrington in the Southern Berkshires, told WAMC that while she wasn’t ready to join Farley-Bouvier’s call, she was sympathetic. Davis noted that Lenco also does work in the fire and rescue sector, and suggested the company focus on that amid the controversy surrounding ICE.
“This is not the time that we need a local company helping ICE in any way, and I think we need consistency," Davis told WAMC. "So, if we have the governor urging out of state companies to reconsider business dealing with ICE, then we should be willing to have those same thoughtful, open conversations about local contracts. So, I'm waiting to hear from Lenco. I'm not going to make any huge statements in terms of telling people what they should do, but I do feel that there's other contracts that they can pursue.”
WAMC reached out to Lenco Executive Vice President Lenny Light for comment, but did not receive a response in time for air and publication.
