What MA Can Do to Protect Our Communities from ICE

ICE officials have announced an increase in activity in Massachusetts, and it has been seen on the ground already. ICE has been kidnapping people off the streets, harassing bystanders, and terrorizing communities–making everyone less safe.  

The LUCE hotline has been doing amazing work to keep people alert and to document what’s happening. Bookmark https://www.lucemass.org/if you haven’t already.

Although we can’t stop everything ICE is doing in Massachusetts, we should not be making their work easier. We need our state legislators to pass legislation to limit the scope of ICE in Massachusetts and to better support our immigrant communities.

That’s why it’s essential for your state legislators to co-sponsor and advocate for critical legislation this session in support of immigrants’ rights:

  • Safe Communities Act (H.2580 / S.1681), which would end the voluntary involvement of our public safety officials in civil immigration matters
  • Dignity Not Deportations Act (H.1588 / S.1122), which would prohibit sheriffs from voluntarily renting beds to ICE and ban agreements to deputize state and local law enforcement to ICE
  • Immigrant Legal Defense Act (H.1954 / S.1127), which would ensure that immigrants navigating our complex immigration courts have legal representation and make permanent a recent budgetary appropriation

EMAIL YOUR LEGISLATORS
In solidarity,
Jonathan Cohn
Policy Director
Progressive Massachusetts

Say Hi at the Mass Dems Convention This Weekend!

If you’ll be in Springfield this Saturday for the Massachusetts Democratic Party Convention, swing by the PM table to say hi! (Don’t see us at first? That’s because we’re all the way in a corner.) We’ll have actions for you to take at the table — and to bring back to your Senate district seating area.

CONVENTION ALERT:In 2017 and 2021, we collaborated with allies like Our Revolution MA to help strengthen the Massachusetts Democratic Party platform. The 2025 platform committee erased the gains from 2017 and 2021 as well as decades-old commitments to policies like single payer health care.

The 2025 platform is a major step back on health care, labor, climate, racial justice, democracy reforms, LGBTQ+ rights, disability rights, immigrants’ rights, and more.

Click here to learn about the effort to fight this rollback.

LEARN MORE

Protect Our Care with Corporate Fair Share Town Halls

It’s time to Protect Our Care with Corporate Fair Share. The Trump administration is taking away healthcare from working families and seniors so they can put more money into the pockets of billionaires and big corporations. Here in Massachusetts, we could lose as much as $3.5 billion in federal aid that pays for health care, education, and food access for hundreds of thousands of people. We simply can’t afford the harm that will cause.

That’s why the Raise Up Mass coalition is holding a series of regional Protect Our Care Town Halls across the state to tell our legislators: it’s time to make big corporations pay their fair share in taxes—and stop the cuts. Chances are we’re holding one near you! Can you join us?

Find a Town hall near you

Here’s what’s at stake. Up to 350,000 people in MA could lose their health care and/or food assistance because of cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. More than one million students could be hurt by cuts to PreK-12, colleges, and child care. The money from these cuts to state funding is flowing directly to big corporations and billionaires, while our communities are stuck with the cost of hospital closures, hungry students, and long ER lines.

Help Get Rent Control on the Ballot

Homes for All Massachusetts is launching the process to place rent control on the ballot in 2026 with a kickoff event this Saturday, September 13, at 11 am in Town Field (1565 Dorchester Ave) in Dorchester–the first of many events.

Want to volunteer for the campaign? Sign up here.

Real Estate Transfer Fees Are a Critical Tool for Addressing Our Housing Crisis

Tuesday, September 9, 2025

Chair Eldridge, Chair Madaro, and Members of the Joint Committee on Revenue:

I am writing on behalf of Progressive Massachusetts, a statewide, member-based grassroots advocacy organization fighting for a more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic Commonwealth.

We urge you to give a favorable report to S.1937/H.3056: An Act granting a local option for a real estate transfer fee to fund affordable housing, filed by Sen. Jo Comerford and Reps. Mike Connolly and Carmine Gentile.

Massachusetts has a housing crisis. We see it in every survey of top issues among residents. We see it in the rising home prices and the number of communities where the median home sale has passed $1 million. We see it in the way that growth in rents has outpaced growth in wages. And we see it in the number of young families or long-term residents who decide to move out of state because they simply can’t afford the high cost of housing in Massachusetts.

Our cities and towns need every tool in the toolbox to address our state’s housing crisis, and a real estate transfer fee would provide a crucial one. By imposing a small fee on high-end real estate transactions, communities will be able to provide much-needed funding to affordable housing trusts so that we can preserve and expand affordable housing stock. These bills recognize that each community’s housing situation is different and thus enable cities and towns to craft the proposal that best fits their community’s needs.

Cities and towns from across the Commonwealth have already filed home rule petitions to do this. When our cities and towns want to become places where people can afford to live at every stage of life, the State Legislature should support them, not get in the way.

Thank you for your work on the hearing, and again we urge a favorable report on S.1937 and H.3056.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Cohn

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts