Testimony: MA Must Stand Up for Our Immigrant Communities

Tuesday, November 25, 2025 

Chair Edwards, Chair Day, and Members of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary: 

Progressive Massachusetts is a statewide, multi-issue, grassroots membership organization focused on fighting for policy that would make our Commonwealth more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic. We urge you to give a favorable report to S.1122/H.1588: An Act relative to immigration detention and collaboration agreements and S.1127/H.1954: An Act ensuring access to equitable representation in immigration proceedings. 

This Thanksgiving, families will be gathering across Massachusetts. But at many tables, there will be missing chairs due to the kidnapping of our immigrant friends and neighbors by ICE agents. 

Since Trump took office in January, ICE has escalated its activities in Massachusetts, terrorizing immigrant communities. ICE arrests have gone up by more than 250% since last year, driven by their targeting of individuals without criminal records. ICE has brutalized children, torn families apart, and engaged in rampant racial profiling. With Congress approving $170 billion to expand deportations, this will only get worse. 

Our immigrant communities are helping to keep our communities healthy, they are innovating and educating, and they are helping us build a better future for all of us. We need to do right by them. 

Immigrants’ rights advocates from across the Commonwealth our aligned on what steps that you can take as a Legislature to protect communities: 

  1. Prohibit new 287(g) agreements

Massachusetts should follow the steps of seven other states and prohibit any new 287(g) agreements. These agreements, in which state and local police are deputized as federal immigration agents, threaten public safety by diminishing trust, overburdening public financial and managerial capacity, distracting from real threats to public safety, and breaking apart communities. 

  1. Prevent partnerships between local law enforcement and ICE

It’s simple: local law enforcement should be focused on keeping communities safe and preventing and investigating crime. Getting involved with immigration raids and arrests diverts time, money, and resources from this goal and undermines the trust on which public safety depends. 

  1. Prohibit local law enforcement from asking about immigration status 

If people fear that interacting with law enforcement could lead to the deportation of them or their loved ones, they will not feel comfortable doing so. This means that incidents of domestic violence, wage theft, and other abuses will go unreported, and communities will be less safe. 

  1. Create a legal aid fund for immigrants at imminent risk of deportation 

Access to counsel matters: detained immigrants with a lawyer are 10 times more likely to win their case than those without. Shockingly, a majority of immigrants with pending cases in MA are navigating their cases without a lawyer.

This bill would remedy that and build into statute an important step that your chambers took in the FY 2026 budget. Similar programs already exist in California, Colorado, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Washington. 

The Trump administration is creating never-ending, everyday crises for so many of our residents. Communities across the Commonwealth need you to lead. 

Sincerely, 

Jonathan Cohn 

Policy Director

Progressive Massachusetts 

Testimony: Welcoming Communities Are Safe Communities

Tuesday, November 25, 2025 

Chair Cronin, Chair Cahill, and Members of the Joint Committee on Public Safety: 

Progressive Massachusetts is a statewide, multi-issue, grassroots membership organization focused on fighting for policy that would make our Commonwealth more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic. We urge you to give a favorable report to H.2580 / S.1681, An Act To Protect The Civil Rights And Safety Of All Massachusetts Residents.

This Thanksgiving, families will be gathering across Massachusetts. But at many tables, there will be missing chairs due to the kidnapping of our immigrant friends and neighbors by ICE agents. 

Since Trump took office in January, ICE has escalated its activities in Massachusetts, terrorizing immigrant communities. ICE arrests have gone up by more than 250% since last year, driven by their targeting of individuals without criminal records. ICE has brutalized children, torn families apart, and engaged in rampant racial profiling. With Congress approving $170 billion to expand deportations, this will only get worse. 

Our immigrant communities are helping to keep our communities healthy, they are innovating and educating, and they are helping us build a better future for all of us. We need to do right by them. 

Immigrants’ rights advocates from across the Commonwealth our aligned on what steps that you can take as a Legislature to protect communities: 

  1. Prohibit new 287(g) agreements

Massachusetts should follow the steps of seven other states and prohibit any new 287(g) agreements. These agreements, in which state and local police are deputized as federal immigration agents, threaten public safety by diminishing trust, overburdening public financial and managerial capacity, distracting from real threats to public safety, and breaking apart communities. 

  1. Prevent partnerships between local law enforcement and ICE

It’s simple: local law enforcement should be focused on keeping communities safe and preventing and investigating crime. Getting involved with immigration raids and arrests diverts time, money, and resources from this goal and undermines the trust on which public safety depends. 

  1. Prohibit local law enforcement from asking about immigration status 

If people fear that interacting with law enforcement could lead to the deportation of them or their loved ones, they will not feel comfortable doing so. This means that incidents of domestic violence, wage theft, and other abuses will go unreported, and communities will be less safe. 

The Trump administration is creating never-ending, everyday crises for so many of our residents. Communities across the Commonwealth need you to lead. 

Sincerely, 

Jonathan Cohn 

Policy Director 

Progressive Massachusetts 

Testimony: MA Needs Action on Our Housing Crisis

Wednesday, November 19, 2025

Chair Cyr, Chair Haggerty, and Members of the Joint Committee on Housing. 

I am submitting testimony on behalf of Progressive Massachusetts. PM is a statewide, multi-issue, grassroots membership organization focused on fighting for policy that would make our Commonwealth more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic. 

We see it all the time in polls, we hear it on the doors, and we see it in the data: Massachusetts has a housing crisis. More and more residents are unable to afford to live in our commonwealth anymore, priced out from one community to another and then out entirely, or face severe housing instability. 

We need a comprehensive approach to the housing crisis, and strong protections for tenants must be a part of it. We urge you to give a favorable report to H.2328: An Act enabling cities and towns to stabilize rents and protect tenants, H.1544 / S.998: An Act to guarantee a tenant’s first right of refusal, and S.968: An Act promoting access to counsel and housing stability in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts has a lot to offer, but that does little if people can’t afford to live here. The US News & World Report’s annual state rankings put Massachusetts at #47 in housing affordability. [1] A worker earning minimum wage in Massachusetts would have to work 91 hours a week to afford a modest one-bedroom rental home at market rate. [2] 

Clearly, Massachusetts has an affordable housing crisis. This is unsustainable. It has led to expanding economic inequality, increased homelessness, and damage to our economy, as talented workers often leave the state for less expensive regions.

Solving this affordable housing crisis will require us to use every tool in the toolbox. That requires zoning reform that encourages the creation of walkable, sustainable, and inclusive communities. It requires public investment. And it requires strengthening tenant protections that ensure that communities can remain affordable, inclusive, and stable.

However, municipalities across Massachusetts are blocked from taking the necessary steps to address the housing crisis. The misguided statewide ban on rent stabilization policies and a stringent home rule system that prevents municipalities from passing their own laws to govern the basic aspects of civil affairs hamstring municipalities.

By enabling our cities and towns to pass rent control ordinances tailored to their local needs, we can stem the displacement that is hitting so many communities.

We cannot build our way out of the crisis alone because the people at the highest risk for displacement will already be pushed out before they can benefit from any medium to long-term reduction in rents.

There is a lot of fear-mongering around rent control, but I want to make a simple point. If you don’t think a landlord should be able to double or triple someone’s rent in a year after doing no work on the property, you believe in rent control, and the question is just a matter of percentages and exemptions.

On too many issues, Massachusetts is haunted by the ghosts of ill-advised ballot initiatives past. It’s 2023, and we need to act like it.

Empowering cities and towns to respond to our housing crisis also requires passing the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA). The TOPA bill, which is similarly an enabling bill, recognizes that we need to preserve our affordable housing stock. Too often, when large landlords sell a building, a mass eviction or rent hike follows for the tenants. TOPA shows that there is another way: as has been a proven success in DC for decades, we could enable tenants to come together to purchase the building—and be granted the right of first refusal in doing so. It’s a common-sense policy for community stability and affordable housing at no cost to the state.

Finally, the Legislature has made a commitment to access to counsel in the most recent budget cycle. However, we need to make this permanent in statute. S.968 bill would provide legal representation for low-income tenants and low-income owner-occupants in eviction proceedings. The eviction moratorium that the Legislature passed earlier in the pandemic was a vital lifeline for so many, but eviction filings have now been climbing past what they were in 2019, pre-pandemic. Tenants enter such eviction proceedings at a major disadvantage: according to FY2024 Trial Court data, while 90% of landlords are represented, less than 5% of tenants are represented. Tenants facing eviction are disproportionately poor, female, and BIPOC, and evictions can have lasting negative impacts on physical and mental health.

Connecticut, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Washington have already passed Right to Counsel policies, and Massachusetts should join them. 

Sincerely, 

Jonathan Cohn 

Policy Director 

Progressive Massachusetts

Testimony: Our Youth Deserve Second Chances

Tuesday, November 18, 2025

Chair Day, Chair Edwards, and Members of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary: 

Progressive Massachusetts is a statewide, multi-issue, grassroots membership organization focused on fighting for policy that would make our Commonwealth more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic. We urge you to give a favorable report to H.1923: An Act to Promote Public Safety and Better Outcomes for Young Adults and H.2051 / S. 1087: An Act to End Lifetime Parole for Juveniles and Emerging Adults. 

A decade ago, Massachusetts raised the age of juvenile court to keep 17-year-olds out of the adult system. Supporters of this reform argued that keeping young people out of the adult criminal system would reduce recidivism. The data is in: they were right. Juvenile crime has declined, and Massachusetts has seen faster declines in violent and property crime rates than the national average. 

It’s time to build on that success by raising the age to 21, as this bill would do. Young people are highly influenced by their environments: it is no surprise then that adult jail and prison environments increase offending behavior. By contrast, in the juvenile system, adolescents have better access to educational and mental health resources that are critical to rehabilitation and successful re-entry, as well as stricter supervision.

Mass incarceration policies have hit communities of color in Massachusetts especially hard. As a criminal sentence too often closes off educational and employment opportunities, our criminal legal system perpetuates racial inequalities. A focus on rehabilitation would give youth a better chance to grow up and contribute in their community and, by doing so, would help reduce intergenerational poverty. When our criminal legal system centers human dignity, rehabilitation, and accountability, rather than punishment and vengeance, we are all safer and healthier in the long run.

As the framing of today’s committee  implies, this bill would mean better access to health care and other supports. However, we want to underscore that merely improving the adult prison system—a task desperately needed and which other bills heard today would do—is not sufficient to address the issues at stake here. Federal and state protections differ, as do long-term legal consequences. 

Similarly advancing these priorities, H.2051 / S. 1087 would address the current situation where youth aged 14 to 21 can face lifetime parole after 15 years in prison. This is costly to the parole system and is ineffective toward achieving stated goals of safety or rehabilitation. We know, through a significant body of research, that most youth will “age out” of offending behavior, and the parole system, which imposes sanctions on parolees for a long list of minor infractions, harms their ability to get back on their feet. 

Sincerely, 

Jonathan Cohn 

Policy Director 

Progressive Massachusetts

Testimony: Our Investments Can Advance Our Values

Tuesday, November 18, 2025 

Chair Feeney, Chair Murphy, and Members of the Joint Committee on FInancial Services: 

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I’m the policy director 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.736/H.1114: An Act to establish a Massachusetts public bank and H.1264/S.767: An Act promoting responsible investment. These bills help ensure that our commonwealth uses our financial resources to align with our values. 

Why a Public Bank (S.736/H.1114)

A Massachusetts public bank would help advance the goal of equitable economic development. Here are a few key ways. 

A Massachusetts public bank would strengthen local economies, especially those in underserved communities. A public bank would not be competing with the existing banking system. It fills in the gaps and creates new opportunities for existing banks. Such a bank would help provide cost-effective financing for small businesses and municipalities, land trusts and cooperatives, and projects for climate change adaptation and mitigation–taking on projects that may have more difficult access to early capital due to lack of connections or higher risks. 

A public bank would be good for our cities and towns. Cities and towns, constrained in how they can raise money, often lack the resources for necessary long-term investments. A public bank would offer cities and towns an affordable and flexible alternative to the bond market for important local infrastructure projects.

A public bank would be good for our small businesses. Although it can seem like a long time ago already, the COVID-19 pandemic was brutal for our small businesses. A public bank would be able to extend loans to small businesses, helping them to weather such difficult times as well as to grow and expand to better serve the community. The bill would specifically target rural communities and underserved neighborhoods, where entrepreneurs often face significant obstacles to securing seed funding for new businesses, and it can help encourage the flourishing of cooperative businesses and worker-owned coops, business models that exemplify shared prosperity.

A public bank would address long-standing economic inequities. We know that women and communities of color have faced longstanding barriers in securing access to capital. A public bank can help to level the playing field.

A public bank would be good for the environment. A public bank could support initiatives to mitigate the dangers of climate change, and it could help local farms adopt and promote sustainable agricultural practices. As the federal government retrenches its support, increased state resources will become critical. 

Responsible Investment (H.1264/S.767)

Our Commonwealth’s investments should align with our values and our priorities. Funding weapons of mass destruction that are causing countless deaths right now and will continue to cause harm into the future. 

Funding these weapons is also antithetical to our state’s environmental and climate commitments: few things are as environmentally destructive as war. 

By divesting our public dollars from these pernicious investments, we can make a strong statement, redirect our resources to creating the better world we want to see, and — also important from a financial perspective — eliminate any liability or entanglement with war crimes committed through our public dollars. 

Sincerely, 

Jonathan Cohn 

Policy Director 

Progressive Massachusetts

Testimony: Our Minimum Wage is Not a Living Wage

Monday, November 17, 2025

Chair McMurtry, Chair Oliveira, and Members of the Joint Committee on Labor and Workforce Development:  

I am submitting testimony on behalf of Progressive Massachusetts. PM is a statewide, multi-issue, grassroots membership organization focused on fighting for policy that would make our Commonwealth more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic. 

We urge you to give a favorable report to S.1349/H.2107: An Act relative to raising the minimum wage closer to a living wage in the commonwealth. 

In 2018, Massachusetts set an example for other states and the country by passing a $15 minimum wage. As of January 2023, the full increase had taken effect, but $15 has lost significant purchasing power due to the rising cost of food, utilities, rent, and other basic necessities. Indeed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, today’s minimum wage would need to be almost $20 to have the same purchasing power as $15 in July 2018. 

The $15 minimum wage, while an improvement, is also not a living wage. According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, a living wage for a single adult with no children would be $28.88 per hour. When children enter the picture, that threshold for meeting basic needs gets higher and higher. Moreover, if the minimum wage did rise in step with productivity growth since 1968, it would have met this standard for a living wage. 

It’s time to raise the minimum wage again. These bills would raise the minimum wage to $20 per hour and index it to inflation, so that the value does not erode over time. Moreover, these bills correct a glaring omission from the last minimum wage increase: the exclusion of municipal workers. Paraprofessionals and cafeteria workers in some municipalities are still not receiving a minimum wage (let alone a living wage), and we should not be allowing such carveouts. All workers deserve a living wage, and this increase would move us in the right direction.

Sincerely, 

Jonathan Cohn 

Policy Director 

Progressive Massachusetts 

Testimony: Cities and Towns Want the Right to Rank.

Thursday, November 13, 2025 

Chair Keenan, Chair Hunt, and Members of the Joint Committee on Election Laws: 

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I’m the policy director 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.531: An Act providing a local option for ranked choice voting in municipal elections. 

Democracy in this country needs strengthening. We see the need for that every single day, and for us to have a robust, participatory, inclusive democracy, we must start at the local level. 

Cities and towns across Massachusetts are doing just that. By passing home rule petitions for ranked choice voting, they are embracing a time-tested reform that makes our elections both more competitive and more collegial. 

Ranked choice voting can inspire more candidates to run by eliminating “spoiler” effects, discourages negative campaigning, and ensures that voters don’t need to become dime-store game theorists thinking about how other people will vote before casting their own ballot. 

When cities and towns want to strengthen democracy, the Commonwealth should embrace the opportunity to say yes. Cities like Easthampton and Cambridge already employ ranked choice systems, and this enabling legislation would make it easier for other communities seeking to do so as well. 

I could speak to the merits of ranked choice voting for a while, but what’s at stake in this bill is really something else. Do we believe in local democracy? 

Your lives as legislators are better off, and cities and towns are better off, if you aren’t bogged down with having to approve home rule petitions about policies that some cities and towns already have. Enabling legislation, or local option legislation, like this sets clear parameters for what cities and towns can do, and then puts the power in people on the ground and their local elected officials to make the decision that’s best for them. It, in other words, gives clear choice, that central hallmark of democracy at any level. 

Sincerely, 

Jonathan Cohn 

Policy Director 

Progressive Massachusetts

Testimony: Say No to Gas, Yes to a Just Transition

Thursday, November 13, 2025 

Chair Barrett, Chair Cusack, and Members of the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy: 

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I’m the policy director 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 H.3547/S.2290: An Act preventing gas expansion to protect climate, community health and safety. 

As we speak, the 30th COP conference of the United Nations Climate Change Conference is taking place in Brazil. Countries from across the world are discussing how to make their climate pledges into climate realities and how to muster collective global action to address the climate crisis. Notably absent, of course, is the United States. 

This year so far, we have seen the Trump administration take countless steps to sabotage our response to the climate crisis and our transition to clean energy. The Trump administration is seeking to rig the future for heavy-polluting fossil fuel companies and deny present and future generations the blessings of cleaner water, cleaner air, and good-paying jobs. We need you to not join them and, instead, to chart a different path in line with our commonwealth’s promises and values.

This bill would prevent new gas facility construction or expansion near environmental justice neighborhoods because we know that we need to leave fossil fuels in the ground (and have known that for decades) and that the communities that have borne the burden of pollution for decades should not be forced to continue to do so. 

But this bill is not just about saying NO. It is about saying YES to what the future can be. 

It centers a vision of a just transition, one in which we usher in a clean energy economy with good-paying jobs that does not leave people behind. The bill requires gas companies to submit just transition plans, including not only measures to meet zero-emissions goals but also measures to do right by their workforce through workforce development, training, staffing, pension system solvency, and other steps. It creates a training fund for workers in the clean energy economy. And it creates a Just Transition Office to guide this energy and economic transformation. 

Time and time again, when Massachusetts voters are surveyed, they say that they want strong action on the climate crisis, and they know that our future is with clean energy. 

We need to continue the progress from recent years on that front, not do Trump’s dirty work for him with more fossil fuels and abandoned commitments. 

Sincerely, 

Jonathan Cohn 

Policy Director 

Progressive Massachusetts

Testimony: Educating for the Whole Child

Wednesday, November 12, 2025 

Chair Lewis, Chair Gordon, and Members of the Joint Committee on Education: 

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I’m the policy director 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.374: An Act empowering students and schools to thrive and S.409/H.726: An Act to establish a community schools special legislative commission. 

Massachusetts has a bedrock constitutional commitment to public education as well as a legal responsibility to provide a quality education to all students. However, we are still living under misguided policies that work against that commitment and that vision, such as state takeovers. 

State takeovers have not improved outcomes for students; to the contrary, takeovers have made decision-making less democratic; imposed a stigma on districts; disempowered parents, educators, school leaders, and elected school committee members; and increased teacher turnover. They weaken the bonds between schools and communities. Compounding all this harm, they have failed to yield any long-term improvements in student test scores or, more fundamentally and more importantly, learning. 

Cities with higher populations of Black, Brown, and immigrant students have been those targeted with state takeovers, perpetuating existing inequalities between districts. 

Last year’s vote on Question 2 showed that voters don’t support the “test and punish” approach to education that is too often just a tool for privatization. 

At the same time as we abandon the harmful education policies of two decades ago that have led to no lasting gains and instead cemented inequalities, we can also embrace a better vision for education. 

The Community Schools model offers such a vision. It recognizes that schools should be spaces where parents, students, educators, and community members can come together to provide services and support to meet the needs of our students and schools. The model understands that students thrive best in the classroom when they are in strong communities and have access to robust services, that for students to learn, they need to be healthy and supported, and that parents, educators, and students know their needs best. 

Sincerely, 

Jonathan Cohn 

Policy Director 

Progressive Massachusetts 

Testimony: Everyone Needs ID

Tuesday, November 4, 2025 

Chair Crighton, Chair Arciero, and Members of the Joint Committee on Transportation:

My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I’m the policy director 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 H.3750/S.2399: An Act to provide identification to youth and adults experiencing homelessness (“Everyone Needs ID” bill. 

Individuals experiencing homelessness face significant obstacles to obtaining an ID, but IDs can often be essential to securing employment and even accomplishing everyday life tasks. Without an ID, it can be difficult, if not outright impossible, to apply for jobs, enroll in education programs, get a library card, pick up a package from the post office, receive a prescription from a pharmacy, and more. So many of us take such tasks for granted, but for individuals experiencing homelessness, they become complicated endeavors and roadblocks on the path toward stability.

The aforementioned bills offer a solution by requiring the Registry of Motor Vehicles to waive the $25 fee for an ID for people experiencing homelessness and by allowing applicants to support alternative documentation to prove Massachusetts residency, such as allowing individuals to provide evidence of receiving services from a state agency under the Executive Office of Health and Human Services.

Massachusetts must take comprehensive action to ensure housing for all; however, in the interim, we must ensure that our policies are not exacerbating the obstacles faced by individuals experiencing homelessness. We urge you to make a difference this session by advancing these bills.

Sincerely, 

Jonathan Cohn 

Policy Director 

Progressive Massachusetts