How Mass. leaders are responding to Trump's mass deportation promises

Elected officials in Massachusetts are reacting to President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to deport hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants by declaring a national emergency and using military assets.

Trump campaigned on a promise of the largest mass deportation in U.S. history, and he says he intends to deliver on it.

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, who declared a state of emergency around migrant arrivals last year, says something needs to be done, but she expressed concern about communities being uprooted.

“I think it’s absolutely appropriate that there be enforcement and deportation of individuals who commit crime, including violent crime. That’s very, very important,” Healey said. “We recognize it would be devastating if there were mass raids, here and across the country, that took out people who’ve been working in this country for a long time, who have families and kids here.”

While Massachusetts is not a sanctuary state, it has eight sanctuary cities.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu called attention to the Trust Act, passed in 2014. It distinguishes the difference in roles between Boston police and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

“We know that the fear of someone who might be living, coming from an immigrant family, not then reporting crimes or not speaking out about different issues, actually then makes the entire community less safe,” Wu said.

Cambridge is also a sanctuary city — it has been since 1985.

“Cambridge affirms the basic human rights and dignity of every human being and provides education, health and other critical services to all residents of Cambridge, regardless of their immigration status,” a city spokesperson told NBC10 Boston in a statement.

Leaders in Worcester, the state’s second-largest city, say it will always remain inclusive and will never target individuals based on their immigration status.

At the former ICE detention center in Dartmouth, there are no plans for the sheriff to reimplement any future detention programs.

“This organization has been there and done that,” said Bristol County Sheriff Paul Heroux.

ICE closed the detention center in 2021 after President Joe Biden took office.

Heroux’s predecessor, former Sheriff Tom Hodgson — a strong ally of Trump who served as the president-elect’s campaign chairman in Massachusetts — blasted the Biden administration and called the center’s closing “a political hit job” orchestrated by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.