Samantha Gross and Matt Stout, “After months of escalation, Healey took action to counter ICE. Fellow Democrats ask: Is it enough?,” Boston Globe, February 3, 2026.
Jonathan Cohn, policy director at the advocacy group Progressive Mass., said Healey admittedly can’t stop ICE operations here, but questioned whether the state is using its “full power” to push back.
“Putting garlic on your door to ward off a vampire is good,” he said, “but what happens if it doesn’t work?”
Last week, Gov. Healey held a press conference focused on a new executive order and new proposed legislation aimed at ICE. But here’s a problem: she reaffirmed her commitment to continued collaboration with ICE.
MA is the only state in New England with a collaboration agreement, known as 287(g), between the state’s Department of Correction and ICE and the only New England Democratic governor to have any collaboration agreement at all.
Massachusetts should not be making ICE’s job easier. End stop.
Email Gov. Healey and tell her it’s time to end the contract with ICE.
In an excellent op-ed this morning, NYT opinion writer Tressie McMillan Cottom explains how ICE is building a massive surveillance apparatus through buying up our data (“ICE Is Watching You“):
“The federal government may have abdicated its responsibility to protect our civil liberties by regulating who can use our data and to what ends. Some states are stepping in, creating their own data privacy laws. But there is still much more to be done, in state legislatures and in Congress. And it all starts with the American people understanding that our freedoms are now bound up in who controls our data.
End the spectacle of vicarious violence. Abolish ICE.
But to end the structure of violence that has ensnared our civil liberties, we will also have to finally, finally turn our attention to who is controlling the damn phones.“
That’s why we are so committed to passing strong data privacy legislation this session.
The MA Senate passed a bill in September, and the House is likely to vote on its own bill soon.
Big Tech companies like Facebook and Google have been lobbying to water it down so that they can keep profiting off our data. Your state rep needs to hear from you that you want a bill with robust protection and robust enforcement.
What if you have already emailed your state rep? Here’s what you can do next: