By Maile Blume, Mary Byrne, and Jesse A. Floyd, Belmont Voice staff
In 2017, Belmont joined a number of communities around the state, designating the town as a “Welcoming Community.”
That designation resulted from a Town Meeting vote on May 8, 2017, in which the town resolved by a 198-59 vote to “express [its] solidarity with displaced persons and migrants from around the world.” In effect, it enshrined practices held by the Belmont Police Department that ensured local officers would not inquire about an individual’s immigration status or detain a person solely based on immigration status.
The resolution included a description of Belmont wherein “immigrants have enriched the fabric of the community, adding new life and great potential to Belmont.”
In the years since, however, the issue has grown far more complex at the national level — arguably coming to a head in the 2024 presidential election, when immigration was a key issue among voters.
As part of his campaign, President Donald Trump promised to track down and deport anyone found to have entered the United States without proper immigration paperwork.
It’s a promise he seems determined to keep, with reports from across the country of mass arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. Over the weekend, the policy resulted in a brief standoff with Colombia over the repatriation of deportees from the United States.
One order indicated ICE officers would no longer respect so-called sensitive areas, such as schools and churches, in their search for undocumented immigrants.
In Belmont, Human Rights Commission Chair Kimberly Haley-Jackson said her commission has received a few inquiries from residents.
“We have gotten a couple of emails from people asking questions,” she said. “Nothing on a personal level, but people are fact-finding right now.”
The situation is fluid and changing daily. Her advice to people might be to know their immigration status and seek answers to questions through resources such as Greater Boston Legal Services.
“We live in a time for us that is a complete 180 from the support we’ve had for the past four years,” she said.
Local Law Enforcement Response
Police Chief James MacIsaac said he could not recall an instance in his 26 years of service when his department collaborated with immigration enforcement. Municipal law enforcement “cannot enforce immigration laws or collaborate with ICE unless they enter into a Cooperative Agreement under the 287(g) Program, which allows such collaboration. Participation in this program is entirely voluntary.
“The rare occasions when immigration issues even arise in our work are typically limited to situations where an individual is arrested for violating Massachusetts criminal laws and, during the arrest processing, it is discovered that they have an immigration detainer,” MacIsaac wrote in an email to a concerned resident.
According to the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an immigration detainer is a request from ICE that asks federal, state, or local law enforcement agency to notify the requesting agency as early as possible before they release a “removable noncitizen” and to hold the noncitizen for up to an additional 48 hours.
“This allows ICE time to take custody of those individuals in accordance with federal immigration law,” according to the department’s webpage.
Even then, MacIsaac wrote that police do not contact ICE directly. Instead, they inform the appropriate authorities, whether the court, bail commissioners, or Middlesex Sheriff, depending on where the individual is taken.
“When someone is arrested and unable to post bail, they are transported either to the Middlesex Sheriff’s custody or directly to court,” he said. “In these instances, we notify the receiving agency of any ICE detainer, though they would likely learn this through their own processes.”
Protecting Students
According to Superintendent Jill Geiser, the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents (MASS) provides ongoing guidance to superintendents across the state, informing Belmont Public Schools’ plan for responding to potential ICE raids.
In a letter to Belmont families, Geiser wrote that Belmont Public Schools will not permit U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on school grounds without a specific federal judicial warrant.
“Our job is to care for and protect our kids,” Geiser said in an interview with The Voice.
According to Geiser, if an agent were to arrive at a school campus, they would be required to wait at the front office; then, the principal would notify the Superintendent’s office and administrators would work with the district’s legal counsel and the Belmont Police Department to protect students, denying entry to agents who do not have a specific judicial warrant.
In her letter, Geiser stated that student information is also protected under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
“[We] will not release any student information without parent or guardian consent,” she wrote.
Geiser said the district has been focusing on communicating with principals and front office staff about the schools’ response protocol, and has not yet developed further training for students or other staff members on how to respond to potential ICE raids.
Meg Moriarty, the chair of the Belmont School Committee, said committee members are also working to educate themselves on state guidance and students’ rights at this time. In fact, school committee members will attend a webinar by the Massachusetts Association of School Committees (MASC) to receive further education and guidance on how to respond in the case of ICE raids.
