Activists are using May Day rallies in Massachusetts to call for greater protections for undocumented immigrants.
A march on Springfield City Hall was scheduled to protest Mayor Domenic Sarno’s refusal to designate Springfield a sanctuary city.
"We demand that Springfield become a sanctuary city," said Diana Sierra, an organizer at the Pioneer Valley Workers Center. " What that means is the police will not collaborate with Immigration Customs Enforcement ( ICE)."
The Northampton-based Pioneer Valley Workers Center estimates there are 6,000 undocumented immigrants living in Springfield.
" It is an embarrassment that Mayor Sarno has voiced his opposition to sanctuary city legislation," said Sierra.
Even though the U.S. government has deported fewer people to date than at this time a year ago under President Obama, activists say the rhetoric of President Trump has raised anxiety in Springfield’s immigrant community.
Marty Nathan, a physician, said she sees it every day in patients at a clinic in Springfield’s predominately Latino North End neighborhood.
"We do our best to meet their mental health needs, but today the mayor of Springfield has the chance to provide the intervention that hundreds of hours of counseling can not," said Nathan. " He has the opportunity to make Springfield a sanctuary city where police do not waste their time doing the job of immigration enforcement but instead fight crime."
Sarno has said repeatedly since January he has no intention of joining fellow Democratic mayors in cities including Boston, Holyoke, and Northampton who have vowed to defy Trump’s threat to punish sanctuary cities by withholding federal funds.
In February, Sarno refused a request to meet with local activists to discuss his stance. Sarno said he told a special assistant to President Trump during a telephone call in March that Springfield is not and would not become a sanctuary city.
" I also indicated to them we would continue to work with federal officials when it comes to violent criminal offenders or illegal immigrants," said Sarno.
The Springfield City Council is scheduled to vote on a May Day resolution sponsored by Councilor Adam Gomez.
"This should not be a political stance that creates a battle between us and the executive branch," said Gomez about the resolution he will ask the other city councilors to support.
Rallies in Boston and its suburbs Monday called for Massachusetts lawmakers to approve the Safe Communities Act.
The proposal would make Massachusetts a so-called “sanctuary state” where state agencies would be limited in their cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
