Somerville city councilor’s remarks spark Trump re-election warning

Somerville City Council is in a panic, ready for it reconfirm its status as a sanctuary cityis already strategizing to circumvent President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to deport migrants.

A city council member who says he has experience helping immigrants avoid federal authorities prompted the city council’s director of immigration to warn councilors “it’s very easy to act these days.”

The council sent a resolution announcing its confirmation to its legislative committee Thursday, which is scheduled for approval later this month. Somerville, a a sanctuary city since 1987 refused to cooperate with federal immigration service in the decades since.

Councilman Jesse Klingan, speaking Thursday night about the resolution, spoke of the protections for immigrant residents during Trump’s previous presidency through what he called “backchannel activism.”

Klingan said those efforts included working with the Welcome Project, the city’s immigrant advocacy organization, in 2017 to provide alerts when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents might be in the area.

Specifically, he talked about seeing ICE waiting outside the courthouse in Somerville to take people away during “these scary times.”

“In addition to what we can do legally,” Klingan said, “I encourage members of the community to come together and unite against this type of hate and these actions that are being taken against our community.”

Maria Teresa Nagel, director of SomerViva, the city’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, said the asylum status confirmation “sends a very loud message” that the city will block fear tactics that try to undermine its commitment to immigrant residents.

However, Klingan’s comments prompted Nagel to warn board members to be “very careful with the strategies that we might want to share publicly.”

“We want to show support,” she said, “we want to be very strategic about what we put out there, but we also want to make sure that what we put out is not used against our community.”

The resolution promises that Somerville will continue to support the Legal Services Stabilization Fund, which provides legal representation for residents facing deportation or eviction.

It orders city departments, including police and schools, not to apply for or accept federal funds that require the collection or release of information about national origin, immigration or citizenship status for “the purpose of targeting or deportation.”

Somerville, which has approximately 80,500 residents, nearly 24% of whom were born outside the country, has been a sanctuary city since 1987, two years after nearby Cambridge became the first Bay State municipality to adopt the designation.

In the past decade, six other municipalities scattered across the Bay State have enacted sanctuary ordinances: Amherst, Boston, Concord, Lawrence, Newton and Northampton.

Somerville City Councilman Lance Davis said he supported the resolution released Thursday, but he asked for amendments that made minor changes to its wording, such as acknowledging how the council confirmed the sanctuary status in 2019.

The director of immigration and advisers spoke about how they feel the city and county are headed for “very dark” and “disturbing times” ahead after Trump’s return to the White House.

“The City of Somerville is proud of its long history of welcoming and supporting generations of immigrants,” the resolution reads, “and has consistently upheld the values ​​of equity, inclusion and support for all community members.”

“The national political climate remains increasingly hostile to immigrants and refugees,” he adds, “and the recent return of a former president to the White House poses heightened risks to immigrant communities across the country.”

Council Vice President Judy Pineda Neufeld, the daughter of two immigrant parents, said she told her nephews in 2016 that they were not being deported and that they were safe because they were born in the United States.

“The rhetoric of the 2016 campaign was just as hateful and hostile as we see it today,” said Pineda Neufeld. “It really struck me that young people go to bed in fear of what will happen to them and their families.”

Next is Somerville’s talk about the purpose of his sanctuary Governor Maura Healey’s pledge What The Massachusetts State Police will not be used to help Trump mass deportation attempts. This was also announced by the main law enforcement agency of the country such support is contrary to its mission.

According to the sanctuary’s definition, the resolution states that Somerville will “strongly advocate for the recognition of schools, hospitals, places of worship and courts as ‘sensitive places’ protected from action by federal immigration authorities to ensure the fair and compassionate administration of justice.” »

The resolution “also invites neighboring Massachusetts cities to reaffirm their commitment to serving and protecting their immigrant communities by coming together in solidarity to protect the rights and safety of residents.”

Councilor Naima Sait, an Algerian immigrant, said after the election results she felt “overwhelmed” that she would have to deal with an administration that had “historically shaken our community.”

In 2016, when she taught at Somerville High School, Sait said she worked mostly with first-generation immigrant families, and that some parents had been forced to leave the country.

“I saw the fear in my students’ eyes every day,” she said. “I’ve watched them fall behind in their schoolwork because they’ve moved into bigger roles in their families, becoming the primary provider, being the one seeking legal services.”

Originally published: November 15, 2024 at 6:56 PM EST