Immigrants and advocates in Massachusetts prepare for next Trump presidency
Updated November 08, 2024
On a normal night, attendees at the Community Workers Center’s weekly meeting in New Bedford want to talk about workplace issues. But on the Wednesday after Donald Trump won his bid to reclaim the presidency, the nonprofit’s director, Adrian Ventura, instead found himself advising the group on their rights as immigrants.
“What should you do if they knock on your door?” he asked in Spanish to the group, comprised mostly of Mayan immigrants from Guatemala. “Don’t open. And if you are detained by the police, you have the right to remain silent — and tell them you have a lawyer.”
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For decades, New Bedford’s Mayan immigrants have been a key source of labor in textile factories, on construction sites and in the seafood processing plants that support the most lucrative fishing port in the country.
And they know immigration enforcement well. In 2007, federal agents raided a clothing factory and arrested 361 workers.
The city hasn’t seen a raid on that scale since then, but Ventura said Trump’s election is raising old fears.
Just hours after the election, Ventura said, a local worker told him she was bullied by a colleague who said the new presidency means her days in the U.S. are numbered.
Throughout his campaign, Trump tried to tie immigrants to crime and pledged to work with local police to round up those in the country illegally.
Immigrant advocacy groups like the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy coalition, are also concerned about Trump upending programs that allow to people to be in the country legally, even if only temporarily.
MIRA Chief of Staff Sarang Sekhavat said he’s worried about losing programs and policies that protect people from deportation, like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or Temporary Protected Status, which have been in place for years.
“What is going to happen to all these families when you have an administration that said, ‘we are ending these programs and kicking these people out of the country,’ ” he asked.
States have little to no control over immigration policy, but they can decide whether to cooperate with federal enforcement actions.
A handful of cities, including Boston and Somerville, have sanctuary city ordinances that bar police from inquiring about immigration status, and from detaining immigrants
on the basis of non-criminal charges. Massachusetts does not have a statewide sanctuary law, but now advocates are renewing their calls for the legislature to enact one.
On Wednesday, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell said she’s ready to push back against Trump policies — including on immigration. She cited Trump’s 2017 ban on people entering the U.S. from seven Muslim majority nations.
“Obviously, when he was president before he led and started with a ban on certain populations and certain constituents,” she said. “We are well aware of that and [attorneys general] came together then to work in partnership to combat that administration. That won’t change in this season.”
Other Massachusetts-based immigrant advocate groups, like the nonprofit La Colaborativa, are also preparing to push back against potential Trump administration policies. Chief Operating Officer Alex Train said the organization has already begun to scale up its immigration and legal aid programs.
“As we head into January, rendering no-cost legal aid to community members at risk of deportation or ensnared in the immigration process will be invaluable,” Train said.
The group is also “ramping up our local safety net, including housing resources, food access programs, as well as health equity initiatives to ensure that all community members, regardless of immigration status, will have access to those critical life saving resources,” in the months and years to come, he said.
Come what may, activists in New Bedford are trying to show resilience.
At Wednesday night’s meeting, 22-year-old Yaquelyn Ruiz said the moment calls for people to organize and support one another.
Speaking in Spanish, Ruiz said, “panicking and sadness are not the solution.” She said the broader community is more accepting of Latinos since the 2007 raid, and she doesn’t think Trump can take away all they’ve achieved in New Bedford.