Gov. Maura Healey wrote a letter to Trump’s administration on Dec. 12, calling for it to halt United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) flights out of Hanscom Field airport.
“As Governor, I am writing to demand that ICE immediately stop using any Massachusetts airports and private jets to deport residents and obstruct due process, and to halt this practice across this country,” Healey wrote to Kristi Noem, the secretary of homeland security, and Todd Lyons, acting director of ICE.
Hanscom is an airfield located partially in Lexington. ICE flights out of the airport have massively increased since Trump was inaugurated in January, according to research by Tom Cartwright of Human Rights First, a large nonprofit that focuses on advancing human rights.
Many ICE deportations have targeted immigrants with no criminal record. Some with visas and even citizenship have been detained.
A representative from the Department of Homeland Security defended the deportation flights in a comment to the Observer.
“ICE has deported over 622,000 illegal aliens since January 20th. Criminal illegal aliens with convictions for RAPE, MURDER, DRUG TRAFFICKING, SEX ABUSE and more,” the spokesperson wrote. “The ICE Air flights out of Hanscom are saving American lives and they must continue.”
Healey’s letter is a step in the right direction, but more must be done, Toby Sackton, an organizer of Lexington Alarm!, a local pro-democracy protest group, told the Observer.
“We are very happy that the Governor identified the harm, but the question we have before the Commonwealth is, ‘what are the next steps that she might take?’” he said.
Lexington Alarm!, alongside several other activist groups in the greater Lexington area, have been calling for the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport), which manages Hanscom’s airfield, to restrict contractors from assisting ICE in unlawful deportations. They’ve protested outside Hanscom weekly since early fall and are researching the legality of Trump’s deportation practices.
Massport representatives have said a few times through email and during meetings with the Hanscom Field Advisory Commission (HFAC), the liaison group that shares information on Hanscom to the public, that its hands are tied by federal preemption.
“Our call to the Governor and Massport is, ‘let’s see what actions you can take that are fully within your jurisdiction that might help discourage ICE from making these flights,’” said Sackton.
As for next steps, Lexington Alarm! activists want the state to ensure people’s due process rights are being upheld. That means allowing people who have future court dates — because they are in the process of gaining citizenship, for example — to remain in Massachusetts so they can attend those court dates.
The advocates want Massport to ensure the contractors and security guards it hires, which are part of the flight operations that allow ICE to move planes through Hanscom, comply with Lunn v. Commonwealth. That landmark ruling by the state’s Supreme Judicial Court states that court officers and police do not have the authority to arrest or detain individuals based on a federal ICE detainer.
Demonstrators also want Massport to publicly disclose all ICE-related charter operations at Hanscom “in a timely manner,” Sackton said. HFAC has asked them to do this, too.
Advocates maintain that the state likely can do more to halt ICE flights based on prior findings and what other states have been able to do.
Last month, a local advocate uncovered emails that prove Massport has received advanced information about ICE flights. That discovery came after months of Massport claiming it does not get information on ICE flights at Hanscom.
One attendee of HFAC’s Dec. 16 virtual meeting argued that because those emails exist, there is good reason to believe more do, too.
In response, Amber Goodspeed, manager of administration for Hanscom Field, said those are the only email correspondence Massport has gotten regarding ICE flights.
Across the country, Seattle activists pushed the King County International Airport to write future contracts barring its business partners from servicing the flights as ICE flights ramped up during Trump’s first term. The federal government sued the county, and last year the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the airport couldn’t impose those restrictions.
But as a result of activists’ requests, the county maintains a log of ICE flights from the airport and live camera views of its airfield, according to its website.
“This has been very useful for people who couldn’t find some of their relatives, and occasionally somebody’s identified based on this public webcam that the King County Airport Authority has put up,” Sackton said.
So what’s next for activists here in Lexington?
HFAC members continue to ask Massport and DHS representatives about ICE operations at Hanscom during their meetings.
Members and attendees have brought up worries about how safe the conditions are on the ICE flights out of Hanscom. Photos of detainees on the tarmac show them wearing handcuffs around their wrists and sometimes their ankles — ‘are they shackled like that while in the air?’ people have asked during HFAC meetings. Neither Massport nor ICE spokespeople who have attended those HFAC meetings have provided answers.
And Lexington Alarm! campaigners are “going to try to function on every conceivable level that we can to make this the important public issue that it should be, and partly that includes continuing our standouts at Hanscom,” Sackton said.
His group started a letter campaign to Healey, Massport, and Massport’s board of directors at the beginning of December, calling on them to “halt ICE operations that violate due-process protections at Hanscom Field.” The group has sent nearly 600 letters since the beginning of the month.
“We want Massport to align with the governor and the state, recognizing this is a real irreparable harm, and then to take what steps they can to mitigate it,” Sackton said.
Gov. Healy has put a target on Massachusetts, risking future federal funding. Now these radicals calling themselves Lexington Alarm want to do the same for our town? What laws are being broken? Please stop drawing negative attention to our town, it’s not cute and it doesn’t represent the views of the broader residents.
Do tell, Mr. McDermott, when did it become “radical” to use your constitutionally guaranteed first amendment rights to protest what you perceive to be the unjust, illegal policies of a corrupt and fascist regime?
You don’t seem to know very much about the town you claim to live in. Lexington is, proudly, the bluest town in the bluest state in the United States of America. To your point, Lexington Alarm! does represent the views of the “broader residents”. That’s why thousands of residents turned out for the protest last Patriots Day and for the “No Kings” protest held on the Battle Green last October 18th.
Perhaps you’ve heard of the Battle of Lexington, the anniversary of which we are celebrating this year. The Battle of Lexington, and the events that took place in our town and our state leading up to that historic day, were the most important political protests in our history. Lexington Alarm! is merely exercising the rights those brave men and women organized and fought for. In my opinion as a resident, what Lexington Alarm! is organizing for is not “cute” or “radical”. It is following in the footsteps of those original protesters.
Governor Maura Healy did not put a target on our backs. That target has been there since Trump moved back into the White House. Since day one, Trump and his handlers from the Heritage Foundation have weaponized the federal government to target any state they deemed unfriendly, including threats to withhold federal aid.
Ensuring that the due process guaranteed by the 14th amendment is provided is the height of institutionalism, not radicalism.
What’s radical is the executive abrogation of separation of powers and departure from longstanding norms regarding use of federal agents and the military.
And that’s putting any ethical,moral or historical qualms to the side!
Besides the protests at Hanscom, which I did not know about until I read about them here, there are also hour-long protests every Wednesday at 1PM at the ICE facility in Burlington (1000 District Ave.) which are well attended.
It sounds like posturing by Gov. Healey, as she has no jurisdiction in this matter. I’m also afraid of federal backlash against Massachusetts. The country/government is becoming more red, and that’s not good for us.
What was that about the country becoming more red?
“Dragged Down by an Unpopular Pesident, Republicans are Preparing for a Midterm Trouncing“
https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2025/dec/27/trump-republicans-midterm-elections-approval-rating
Avram, first of all learn to spell ‘President’. Secondly, the country did become more red when it elected President Trump, which says a lot more than the opinionated quote you found. Thirdly, Lexington became more Blue, too Blue in my opinion. I remember a time several years ago when Lexington officials approved ICE setting up holding cells for violent gang members to be processed right here in Lexington Corporate Center. A few residents hired an expensive lawyer and the landlord changed his mind.
Emily, why don’t we put this aside until after Election Day, 2026. If Trump preserves his majorities in the House and the Senate with newly minted Trump loyalists, I will be first in line to acknowledge that a majority of Americans believe that Trump has the country on the correct track. Of course, if things don’t go that way, if we get the expected blue wave, can I expect you to acknowledge that the results were legal and lawful and that they were an overwhelming rebuke of Trump and his policies?
Avram- hilarious that you won’t acknowledge Trump won the election last year in a landslide with 312 to 216 electoral votes and the popular vote.
Why didn’t you protest Biden allowing open boarders that threatened the safety of every American. Why don’t you press your representatives in Congress to pass immigration reform? If Biden hadn’t let immigration run amok for 4 years, then Trump wouldn’t have been elected to clean up the mess Biden created. You might not like his methods, but the pendulum must swing in the other direction to correct course. Such is life.
Mr. McDermott, who was elected president in 2024 was not part of the discussion until you added it. Of course I acknowledge Trump was legally and lawfully elected president on Election Day in 2024 with a majority of electoral votes. I’m sure that you likewise acknowledge that Joe Biden was legally and lawfully elected President of the United States on Election Day in 2020 — you do acknowledge that, correct?
Anyway, as I thought I made clear in my prior comments, my personal opinion is that come Election Day 2026 there will be so many voters who are dissatisfied with the way Trump and the Republicans have run the country that Republicans will receive the midterm trouncing predicted in the article from The Guardian.
As I said to Evelyn Dickson, why don’t we put this discussion aside until after the midterm election. To reiterate what I said previously. “If Trump preserves his majorities in the House and the Senate with newly minted Trump loyalists, I will be first in line to acknowledge that a majority of Americans believe that Trump has the country on the correct track. Of course, if things don’t go that way, if we get the expected blue wave, can I expect you to acknowledge that the results were legal and lawful and that they were an overwhelming rebuke of Trump and his policies?”
Hey, Mr. McDermott, I couldn’t help but notice that you never acknowledged my refutation of your “hilarious” statement that that I wouldn’t acknowledge that Trump won the 2024 presidential election. I also couldn’t help but notice that you didn’t respond to my challenge to acknowledge that Joe Biden was legally and lawfully elected President on Election Day, 2020. So I will reissue the challenge. Just to be clear, Mr. McDermott, I’m not asking you who was sworn in as President in 2021. I’m asking you, “yes” or “no”, was Joe Biden legally and lawfully elected President of the United States on Election Day 2020, with an overwhelming majority of electoral votes and an overwhelming victory in the popular vote.