House Democrats resoundingly rejected a Republican-led effort Wednesday afternoon to reform a 2017 court ruling that bars law enforcement in Massachusetts from detaining people based solely on suspected civil immigration violations.
During the second day of debate on the House’s $61 billion fiscal year 2026 budget, lawmakers engaged in what was likely an early preview of the back-and-forth over proposed reforms to a Supreme Judicial Court ruling that Republicans have set their sights on this session.
Rep. Paul Frost, an Auburn Republican, unsuccessfully pushed legislators to sign off on a proposal that would have allowed local law enforcement to detain someone wanted by federal immigration authorities for up to 12 hours after their court proceedings end.
Frost said the amendment to the state budget plan was modeled after language originally filed by former Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, and would provide a mechanism for law enforcement in courts to detain people involved in violent crimes.
“It’s unconscionable that we simply let these violent individuals go once they’re done in court. And if (U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) does put a detainer for them, we in Massachusetts will not honor it. We will not hold them,” Frost said from the House floor. “We can address that today.”
But Rep. Priscilla Sousa, a Framingham Democrat, said allowing court officials to hold someone based on a civil immigration detainer would have a chilling effect among people who are not in the country legally.
She said her family immigrated from Brazil to the United States when she was seven years old. In their quest to obtain citizenship, Sousa said her family ended up overstaying their visa, which amounted to a civil infraction and made them undocumented.
“Our life in this country was uncertain because we lived in the shadows, and every time something like what is being proposed today was brought up, we would be less trusting of law enforcement and authorities in general. We hid at home more. We stopped interacting and investing in our community, and we stopped planning for our future,” she said.
The amendment backed by Frost, which was shot down on a 25 to 131 vote, tried to target a ruling from the Supreme Judicial Court that critics have argued provides “sanctuary” protections to undocumented immigrants in Massachusetts and impedes the work of federal immigration officers. Supporters say the ruling sets clear boundaries between state and federal officials.
Multiple Republicans have filed bills this legislative term that seek to rework the ruling. Gov. Maura Healey’s secretary of public safety and homeland security said earlier this year that the decision is a “significant issue” that needs to be addressed by lawmakers.
The court decision has become a flashpoint among conservatives after a series of high-profile arrests in state-run shelters and attempts by immigration authorities to take custody of people who entered the United States illegally.
In a 34-page decision issued in 2017, SJC justices wrote that local law enforcement do not have the power to hold someone beyond the time they would otherwise be released from court custody solely on the basis of a civil immigration detainer issued by federal authorities.
That means that local law enforcement and court officers must release people even if ICE officers have lodged a civil immigration detainer as part of deportation proceedings.
Detainers generally ask local authorities to hold someone who would otherwise be entitled to release for up to two days in order for immigration officials to arrive and take the person into their custody for removal proceedings.
Justices ruled that holding someone against their will based on a civil immigration detainer constituted an arrest under Massachusetts law.
The justices did not decide whether the arrests based on civil detainers, if they were authorized under state law, would be permissible under the U.S. Constitution or the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights.
Instead, the justices ruled that local authorities do not have the inherent authority to arrest someone based on a civil immigration detainer issued and largely left it up to lawmakers to decide whether to further clarify state law.
“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 justices wrote in the decision.
Frost said his amendment attempted to provide that clarification.
“This amendment seeks to provide that statute, provide that mechanism,” he said. “If a violent offender is arrested, is brought to court, and is of interest to ICE, that ICE puts in a detainer for that individual, that the court can hold them up, detain them for up to 12 hours, for ICE to come and get them,” he said.
Rep. Daniel Cahill, who co-chairs the Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee, said there is already cooperation between federal immigration authorities and local law enforcement when a person is the subject of a criminal immigration detainer.
The Lynn Democrat argued that allowing court officials to hold people based on civil immigration detainers would “utilize state resources to assist federal agencies in civil deportations.”
“The law says here in Massachusetts, we are not to detain someone a moment, not 12 hours, not 12 seconds. When your case is concluded, you leave,” he said. “What the federal government wants us to do is expend resources to hold people beyond that time. That’s a constitutional problem.”
