by Brian Garvey
The Massachusetts Legislature has passed the PROTECT Act, sending Governor Maura Healey some of the strongest statewide protections our immigrant neighbors have won in years.
This is a real victory.
The bill places meaningful limits on the role Massachusetts institutions can play in Donald Trump’s mass-deportation campaign. It makes it harder for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to use local police, public agencies, schools, hospitals, and courthouses as extensions of the federal deportation machinery.
The basic principle is simple: Massachusetts resources should be used to serve and protect the people of Massachusetts, not to help ICE terrorize our communities.
Under the PROTECT Act, state and local police will face stronger restrictions on questioning people about their immigration status, holding them for ICE, or using public personnel and resources to carry out civil immigration enforcement. The bill creates greater protections against immigration arrests at courthouses, schools, child-care facilities, hospitals, clinics, and other places people should be able to enter without fear.
It will also help schools, public agencies, employers, and other institutions understand what to do when immigration agents arrive. It improves access to legal counsel for people in detention, makes the visa process easier for survivors of trafficking and other crimes, requires employers to notify workers about certain ICE inspections, and helps parents prepare for the care of their children if they are detained or deported.
These protections will not end ICE raids or eliminate the danger posed by the federal government. But they will make it more difficult for ICE to use Massachusetts institutions to identify, isolate, detain, and deport our neighbors.
That matters.
None of this happened because Beacon Hill suddenly discovered the danger of ICE overreach. It happened because immigrant communities, organizers, attorneys, labor unions, teachers, faith communities, civil-rights groups, and ordinary residents spent years forcing the issue into public view.
State Senator Jamie Eldridge deserves particular credit. For years, he championed the Safe Communities Act, often when legislative leaders were unwilling even to bring it to a vote. That legislation established the central principle underlying the PROTECT Act: Massachusetts police, courts, and public institutions should not be commandeered as agents of federal deportation policy.
The Safe Communities Act did not become law, but it was the precursor to the legislation that finally passed. The years of organizing, testimony, coalition-building, and legislative work behind it laid the foundation for this victory. Senator Eldridge kept the issue alive when many on Beacon Hill would have preferred to avoid it.
The Massachusetts Black and Latino Legislative Caucus then carried that work forward by developing and championing the PROTECT Act. Representatives Andy Vargas and Judith Garcia filed the legislation, with the support of caucus members who understood that Black, Latino, and immigrant communities would bear the brunt of unchecked federal enforcement.
Their leadership gave the campaign a vehicle capable of moving through the Legislature at a moment of extraordinary danger.
Public pressure also helped move Governor Healey. Her executive orders limiting new cooperation agreements with ICE, restricting warrantless immigration arrests in state facilities, and barring the use of state property for some federal enforcement operations set an important baseline. They also demonstrated that Massachusetts had the power to push back against ICE.
But executive orders can be reversed by a future governor. The PROTECT Act places many of these essential protections into state law.
The version passed by the House in March contained important provisions, but advocates correctly argued that it was not strong enough. The People’s PROTECT Act effort made sure legislators could not pass a limited bill with the right name and declare the work finished.
More than 75 grassroots organizations, many led by people directly affected by immigration enforcement, organized to strengthen the legislation. They demanded tougher restrictions on police collaboration and information-sharing with ICE, greater protection for people using the courts, and stronger safeguards for immigrant families.
That pressure mattered.
Coalition members organized teach-ins, rallies, meetings, testimony, and demonstrations. They worked with Senators Jamie Eldridge and Lydia Edwards to improve the bill. The Senate passed a stronger version, and many of those improvements survived the negotiations between the House and Senate.
The PROTECT Act would not be as strong as it is without the People’s PROTECT Act campaign refusing to accept the first version as the best Massachusetts could do.
Credit also belongs to the Protecting Massachusetts Communities coalition, led by the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition and the Brazilian Worker Center. The coalition brought together organizations including the ACLU of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Teachers Association, the Service Employees International Union, and many others.
These organizations contributed legal expertise, coordinated advocacy, elevated the voices of affected communities, and maintained pressure throughout the legislative process.
But the deepest credit belongs to the people whose names will never appear in a press release.
It belongs to those who called their representative or senator, wrote to Governor Healey, submitted testimony, attended a hearing after work, stood outside the State House, spoke publicly about what happened to their families, or asked friends and neighbors to make calls of their own.
These actions are sometimes dismissed as small. Together, they changed state law.
Particular credit belongs to the activists who have maintained a vigil outside ICE’s New England headquarters in Burlington. Hundreds of people have taken part in Bearing Witness at ICE, gathering every Wednesday to confront the abuses carried out by ICE, Customs and Border Protection, the Department of Homeland Security, and the entire mass-deportation system.
The organizers of that vigil helped transform public outrage into sustained political pressure. Ordinary people made demands, flooded inboxes, rang phones off their hooks, and made it impossible for elected officials to pretend their constituents were not paying attention.
Some arrived with handmade signs. Others shared stories about their own families and communities. Week after week, they stood outside the headquarters of an agency that has brought fear and violence into communities across New England.
The leadership of state government was not anxious to take this action. Pressure from below forced the change. It came from immigration attorneys and experienced organizers, but also from retirees, teachers, workers, parents, students, and the women in Burlington who show up every week dressed as the Statue of Liberty.
Massachusetts Peace Action has been working on this issue for almost a decade. For us, this has always been a peace issue. Federal agents operating like soldiers in our streets, terrorizing families and tearing communities apart?
Hell no.
Because of this sustained pressure, fewer of our neighbors will be swept into detention through cooperation between ICE and Massachusetts institutions. Fewer people may be taken from their families and forced to sleep on cement floors. More people will be able to enter a school, hospital, or courthouse without wondering whether the Commonwealth has helped ICE set a trap for them. People will be better able to call an ambulance or report a crime without fearing that la Migra will show up at their door a week later.
The people made this possible.
We should celebrate this victory. But the work is not finished.
The final bill is not everything advocates demanded. It leaves the Department of Correction’s existing cooperation agreement with ICE in place. It allows some information-sharing to continue. Houses of worship were not given the same strong protections as several other sensitive locations. Other protections sought by the People’s PROTECT Act campaign were weakened or left out.
No state law, however strong, can completely prevent federal agents from abusing their power. ICE has demonstrated a willingness to operate behind masks, use unmarked vehicles, intimidate families, search and seize without judicial warrants, and use deadly force. The same machinery being deployed against immigrants threatens the rights and safety of citizens, activists, workers, journalists, and anyone else who stands in the way of authoritarian power.
Protecting our immigrant neighbors is not separate from defending our own rights. It is where that defense begins.
Governor Healey should sign the PROTECT Act without delay. The Commonwealth must then implement it aggressively, educate residents and institutions about the protections it provides, investigate violations, and hold public officials accountable when they assist unlawful federal overreach.
We must also return to the protections that were left out. We must continue standing with people facing detention and deportation. We must continue resisting ICE raids, exposing abuses, providing legal and material support, and organizing communities to defend one another.
The passage of the PROTECT Act proves that calls, messages, testimony, meetings, rallies, vigils, and sustained coalition work can change things.
The lesson is not that our work is complete. The lesson is that organizing works.
Good. We are going to need much more of it in the struggle ahead.