BOSTON — Federal agents arrested several undocumented individuals with criminal histories Wednesday night, including alleged gang members and some wanted for such violent crimes as rape and murder.
Governor Maura Healey applauded those arrests.
“Whether you’re documented or undocumented, you commit crimes, you’re subject to investigation and prosecution and accountability,” Healey said. “And it looks like that is what happened.”
The governor distinguished those arrested last night, however, from the vast majority of undocumented migrants in Massachusetts -- who have committed no crime other than to come here.
Still, those arrests set off new concerns that the Trump Administration’s immigration enforcement efforts will part with precedent and indeed make, as promised, schools and hospitals targets.
Sarang Sekhavat, chief of staff at the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA) said that distasteful as that might be to some, his group cannot rule out the possibility of such raids happening -- nor innocent students getting arrested.
“What we’re concerned about is how they’re defining gang members,” he said. “A student being accused of being in a gang or associating with gang members, when the truth is they’re just in class with someone who IS a gang member.”
On the other hand, Sekhavat said it’s also possible the Trump Administration is looking for a form of indirect crackdown assistance through the fear of something happening -- rather than the real thing.
“You’re really talking about scaring people out of their normal, everyday lives,” he said. “Their intention is to force people to self-deport. They want to make things so uncomfortable for people here in the U.S. that they decide they have no other choice but to leave.”
Sekhavat said he’s seen the fear tactic work before.
“You would see kids stop going to school for a week,” he said. “People were canceling their doctor’s appointments. People were not going to work.”
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell is expected to issue guidelines for schools on dealing with immigration ‘raids.’ Already, Superintendents in Fitchburg, Boston, and Worcester have said student safety is paramount.
East Boston resident Alan Circeo hadn’t heard about the immigration arrests in his community the night before. But he condemned the idea of the same thing happening in schools or hospitals.
“I think it’s pretty terrible,” he said. “And it’s scary and dangerous.”
Circeo said even residential ‘raids’ are risky in East Boston because the housing stock often means citizens living below or above non-citizens -- with neither apartment knowing the status of the other.
“Are agents going to be bursting through doors, going through windows -- are they even going to check to make sure,” he said. “And that’s not even to say they should be going after the quote-unquote illegal aliens. It’s a recipe for a disaster.”
Want to know your rights in the event of an ICE enforcement action? visit https://miracoalition.org/news/know-you-rights/
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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