Deportations Loom Over MA Immigrants

There can be no delay - We must act now

Federal Agents in Maryland, Jan 27. (Source: WBUR)

The Threat in Massachusetts

Since January, fear of ICE raids has spread throughout immigrant communities in Massachusetts. With federal authorities now open to arresting undocumented students in schools, the state attorney general has sought to remind K-12 schools of students’ right to privacy in a public advisory. Schools in my own city, Fitchburg, have released a letter stating that the school district does “not coordinate with ICE”.

The worries are well-justified. Trump official Tom Homan has promised to “bring hell” to the Boston just one month after federal agents were spotted in the city. Accusing local law enforcement of not “honoring an ICE detainer”, he’s made it clear that the bay state is no refuge from the federal crackdown on illegal immigration.

An ICE detainer is a request from federal immigration agents to keep a “removable alien” in police custody for up to 48 hours before handing them over to the Department of Homeland Security. If police submit to this request, they may hold an arrested person even after they have posted bail or have no charges against them. This process completely tramples over the right of the accused, subverting the traditional protections of the criminal justice system in order to more efficiently expel undocumented members of the community. Accordingly, state courts had determined that a detainee cannot be held based on an ICE detainer alone in the 2017 case Lunn v. Commonwealth.

However this court decision does not make the entire state a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants. On the contrary, state politicians including Governor Maura Healey are rolling back housing protections for immigrants as the Trump government threatens mass deportation. Now with Homan’s threats, undocumented immigrants feel unsafe even in the Bay State.

What is Immigration Enforcement?

Federal authorities constantly issue press releases about how they have protected public safety by arresting dangerous “alien offenders” and removed them from the community. The commercial media repeat these stories, creating the narrative that immigration enforcement is about stopping criminals. This is a deliberate obfuscation.

Per their own statistics, over 79% of the people arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New England in the last four years have not been charged or convicted of any crime. Actual convicted criminals were less than 13%.

Though they make detentions on the pretext of targeting the “worst criminals”, many of the people that ICE apprehends have only been charged and not convicted of any crime. The principle of “innocent until proven guilty” can offer no comfort to undocumented immigrants, who can be kidnapped by federal agents as soon as they are known to the police. In truth, no undocumented people are entirely safe from federal deportation, whether they are guilty of crime or not. ICE agents are happy to scoop up "collateral" — Non-criminal foreigners who happened to be in the wrong place during a raid.

The goal of immigration enforcement, rather than having anything to do with “protecting the American people from invasion,” as the incoming President put it, is ensuring that a portion of workers are unable to rise above their station. Undocumented immigrants typically work harder jobs, draw worse wages, and access fewer social services. Criminalized by state and federal agencies, undocumented immigrants are less capable of organizing for a better life. This makes them vulnerable to even more intense exploitation on the labor market than citizens and authorized immigrants.

Immigration enforcement in our country today is about maintaining the hierarchy between American citizens and aliens. ICE is the government agency responsible for terrorizing the most insecure and desperate workers in the United States into silence and submission. Federal agents have already started putting people in concentration camps for their immigration status. The powers that be have decided that there should be no limits on government violence against undocumented people in this country, and are acting accordingly.

Conclusion

The founders of this country once said “All men are created equal.” But does that equality mean anything when wealthy nations wall themselves in against the world? Why must we let “citizen” be a privileged class above the desperate masses who brave cruel and sustained state violence to migrate and better their condition?

We should discard this chauvinist notion that privileges certain people based on the circumstances of their birth. As US citizens, it’s our duty to act in solidarity with the undocumented immigrants living among us and protect them from state violence whenever possible. Together we can construct a society where no human being is barred from contributing their work or accessing the necessities of life.

There is much work to be done. The Governor of Massachusetts has openly declared that this state is not a sanctuary for immigrants. Though Lunn v. Commonwealth has somewhat reduced the efficacy of ICE within the state, most towns here lack any ordinance to protect undocumented immigrants from persecution. We can still enact sanctuary policies in our cities and towns before mass deportations begin. It doesn’t have to be too late.