While President Donald Trump is in the midst of ramping up the federal government’s efforts to deport millions of people currently residing in the U.S. unlawfully, Republican lawmakers in Massachusetts say it’s time to change the state’s practice of ignoring immigration detainers filed by federal officials.
According to a 2017 decision by the state’s Supreme Judicial Court, state law “provides no authority for Massachusetts court officers to arrest and hold an individual solely on the basis of a Federal civil immigration detainer.”
That means even if Immigration and Customs Enforcement asks a sheriff or law enforcement agency to detain an immigrant facing serious criminal charges, officers are unable to comply. However, that could change if a bill recently offered by conservative lawmakers is made law.
HD.4221, or An Act to promote and protect safety in the Commonwealth, according to Worcester and Hampshire State Sen. Peter Durant, is a commonsense response to the decision made in Lunn v. the Commonwealth.
“Our goal, obviously, is to allow our law enforcement to detain those who have ICE detainers on them so they can be turned over,” Durant told the Herald on Tuesday.
The bill, offered by State Reps. Michael Soter and Kenneth Sweezey, would not require law enforcement officials to detain those sought by ICE, but would give them the option to do so. It would serve, Durant said, as just another “tool in the toolbox.”
According to Soter, “it’s essential that we equip our law enforcement with the resources, tools, and support they need to keep our communities safe.”
“Both sides of the aisle are united in the belief that undocumented immigrants who come here to commit crimes should be returned to their home countries. The state and local authorities must be able to detain these criminals and give ICE the opportunity to take action,” the Bellingham Republican said.
Sweezey, of Pembroke, said the “immigration issue in Massachusetts has gotten completely out of control.”
“This piece of legislation is a very simple, commonsense first step in rectifying part of the issue,” he said.
The bill is also, Durant said, a direct response to the court’s instructions in the Lunn decision. According to the SJC, it’s not the judiciary’s place to invent laws or authorities for law enforcement.
“The prudent course is not for this court to create, and attempt to define, some new authority for court officers to arrest that heretofore has been unrecognized and undefined. The better course is for us to defer to the Legislature to establish and carefully define that authority if the Legislature wishes that to be the law of this Commonwealth,” the SJC wrote in 2017.
The bill has the backing of a pair of Massachusetts Sheriffs — Worcester County Sheriff Lew Evangelidis and Plymouth County Sheriff Joseph McDonald Jr. — and comes, Durant said, as “we’re seeing the ICE raids that are occurring now.”
Allowing law enforcement to hold an immigrant subject to a detainer could prevent those raids from occurring in immigrant communities, Durant said.
“Right now they are not allowed to detain them. Why do we want to make immigration’s job more difficult and more dangerous, when you have them in custody already? Busting into a home, you want to avoid things like that,” Durant said. “You don’t want to traumatize innocent people who might be in the same location.”
According to Evangelidis, in Worcester County “the number of individuals with ICE detainers coming through our facility has more than doubled since 2021,” and he’s not talking about people who simply overstayed their visas.
“These individuals have committed serious crimes including murder, rape, drug trafficking, and more. This bill will ensure that my staff can utilize all available tools to protect the safety of Massachusetts residents. The legislation drafted by Representatives Soter and Sweezey will accomplish this and prevent ICE from expending unnecessary resources in re-arresting dangerous non-citizens,” Evangelidis said in a statement.
According to information released by ICE, its officers arrested 1,179 people on Monday for immigration violations, 956 people on Sunday, 286 on Saturday, 593 on Friday, and 538 on Thursday. Over the course of Trump’s first week in office, more than 4,500 immigrants have been arrested by ICE, according to the agency.
An ICE report released toward the end of the Biden Administration showed the agency averaging about 310 arrests per day under the 46th President.
ICE files a detainer request, according to the agency, only after “officers or agents establish probable cause to believe that an alien is removable — typically after a court has convicted them of one or more crimes — and typically when the alien poses a public safety or national security threat.”
A detainer asks local law enforcement and holding facilities to “hold the alien for up to 48 hours beyond the time they would ordinarily release them, so DHS has time to assume custody in accordance with federal immigration law,” according to the agency.
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