New immigrants and their advocates in Lexington worry about Trump’s deportation plans, but aren’t panicking yet

New immigrants and their advocates in Lexington nervously await President-elect Donald Trump’s second term to hear what his immigration policy will entail. 

Trump and those he’s selected to work in his administration have stated they will use the military and state National Guard troops to conduct mass deportations and hold undocumented immigrants in camps along the southern border, among other anti-immigration plans, though nothing is set in stone until he’s in office. 

Gov. Maura Healey and Mayor Michelle Wu both stated they will not comply with deploying state police to “round up” undocumented immigrants who aren’t criminals — and they don’t have to, according to Matthew Maiona, a partner at Maiona Ward Immigration Law in Boston. 

While state and city officials have doubled down on their defiant stance, local immigrant advocacy groups such as the Lexington Refugee Assistance Program, or LexRAP, a Lexington-based nonprofit that works with refugees and asylum seekers to ease their transition to life in the US, are waiting for Trump to take office before taking any action. 

“All we are able to do right now is to listen to what’s happening, pay attention, so that we hope we are not blind-sided,” Bruce Neumann, president of LexRAP, told LexObserver. “We don’t know what’s going to happen. There is nothing specific to prepare.”

More than 200,000 of the nation’s 11 million undocumented immigrants live in Massachusetts. Approximately 67 immigrant and homeless families live in long- and short-term shelters in Lexington, including the National Guard Armory, Karissa Hand, Healey’s press secretary, told LexObserver. 

Some of the immigrants sheltering in Lexington feel they’re living in a state of limbo, but aren’t letting themselves get too worried about their futures until Trump’s second term begins. 

“Until he takes power, we don’t really know anything, so we are just waiting to see what happens,” a recent immigrant from Haiti who is sheltering at the Lexington Armory told LexObserver through a translator.

“Us as immigrants that are mostly here illegally, we don’t know what’s going to happen to us,” a man who came from the Dominican Republic and is staying at the Armory told LexObserver through a translator. “That’s what we’d like to know — whether we’re going to have some sort of help from the government or not.”

Many of the new immigrants living in Lexington have become a part of the community, including the 342 children who met “the federal definition of a recent migrant” and attended Lexington’s public schools last year, according to Superintendent Julie Hackett. That number includes both undocumented and documented immigrants, Hackett said, but Massachusetts public schools do not collect information on immigration status from families, so Lexington Public School’s administration can’t distinguish who is undocumented and who is not.

Some immigrants passing through Lexington have also worked with LexRAP to improve their English language skills, Neumann said. 

But beyond providing English-language education to immigrants in town, Neumann told LexObserver his organization has not begun planning for how to support immigrants through the plans Trump and his allies have promoted in the media. 

“We know that the news has made these folks anxious just like it’s making me anxious,” he said. “But we have no way of knowing what will actually happen.” 

Elizabeth Sweet, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant & Refugee Advocacy Coalition, or MIRA, said in a webinar on Wednesday that her organization is looking for volunteers to help advocate for immigrants’ rights. 

MIRA’s top legislative priorities include “advocating for policies that separate state and local police force from federal immigration enforcement” and “advocating for federal, state, and local funding to provide legal services to immigrants,” said Maroni Minter, political director at MIRA. 

“For us, while some of these proposed measures like increased deportation really create fear for so many families, we also know this is no time to give up,” Minter, who immigrated to the US from Gabon in 2004, said. “This is a moment to come together as a community.” 

Trump touted an aggressive anti-immigration agenda during his first term, when he attempted to build a militarized wall along the southern border and similarly vowed to carry out mass deportations. He only managed several hundred thousand removals per year during his first term, which is on par with other recent administrations, the New York Times reported. But throughout his campaign for the 2024 election and since he won the bid earlier this month, Trump has been vocal about his plans to target various immigrant groups, including more than just criminals. 

He’s called for cancelling visas for students who participated in anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian protests, ending birthright citizenship for babies born in the US to undocumented parents, deporting recent arrivals and people with Temporary Protected Statuses, a limited status offered to people displaced from their home countries by extreme circumstances, and more, NYT reported. Maiona believes these measures would split up families, cost the country a lot of money, and “probably result in multiple federal lawsuits.” 

Maiona also referenced the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, stating that “once you enter the US, you have a series of rights,” even if you entered the country illegally. That would make deporting large amounts of immigrants time-consuming because each immigrant has the right to due process of law. 

Healey said that while she believes border security should be tightened, she does not support Trump’s plan to deport immigrants who aren’t criminals. 

“I do not support rounding up millions of families who’ve lived here for a long time and who have kids here,” she said in a statement. “I don’t think it’s humane or smart economically, and it will crater some of our major industries across the country. When it comes to immigration, what I’m focused on is the need to strengthen enforcement at the border. Congress should pass a bipartisan bill that strengthens border security, addresses the flow of fentanyl and increases border agents and resources.”

Likewise, Wu said on WCVB-TV’s “On the Record” that Boston authorities will not assist federal law enforcement in any mass deportations of residents who have not been involved in serious criminal activity.

“Elections have consequences, the federal government is responsible for a certain set of actions,” she said on WCVB. “No individual city can reverse or override some parts of that, but what we can do is make sure that we are doing our part to protect our residents in every possible way, that we are not cooperating with those efforts that actually threaten the safety of everyone by causing widespread fear and having large-scale economic impact.”

Asked if Healey and Wu have the power to defy the president-elect’s plans if they are put into motion when he enters office, Maiona said they are “not required to cooperate.” He added that deportation cases are civil lawsuits, which police are not typically involved in, unlike criminal lawsuits. 

“You could equate it to asking the police to intervene in a bankruptcy case,” Maiona said.

Trump confirmed on Monday that he intends to declare a national emergency and use the military to carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. He responded to a post on Truth Social, his social media platform, made earlier this month by Tom Fitton, who runs the conservative group Judicial Watch. Fitton’s post stated Trump’s administration would “declare a national emergency and will use military assets” to address illegal immigration “through a mass deportation program,” NYT reported. Trump reposted Fitton’s post and commented, “TRUE!!!”

Trump has also named Stephen Miller, his former speechwriter and senior counselor during his first term, to be the White House deputy chief of policy and homeland security advisor. Miller told NYT he plans to use military funds to build camps that would function as detention centers for immigrants to be held in while their cases progress.

Just as it would be difficult to swiftly deport large numbers of immigrants because of the due process clause, Maiona said it would be difficult to place immigrants in the camps the Trump administration has imagined. 

“Setting up the camps on the border…let’s just assume he can do that and set them up quickly, you’d still have to go through a legal process to put someone in there who’s already in the US,” he said. 

Trump also hired Tom Homan, his former acting US Immigration and Customs Enforcement director, to be his “border czar.” In an interview with Newsmax on Monday, Homan warned Wu to “get the hell out of the way” in response to her pledge that local authorities will not assist federal law enforcement in mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, the Globe reported.

Nonetheless, Massachusetts and Boston officials hold strong in maintaining Boston as a sanctuary city. 

Massachusetts is the only state with a “right to shelter” law, which was enacted by former Gov. Michael Dukakis in 1983. The law requires state officials to provide shelter to homeless parents with children and pregnant women. 

Healey implemented new restrictions to Dukakis’ law this year because the emergency shelter system swelled with demand, in part due to an influx of immigrant families to Massachusetts. Effective Aug. 1, Healey imposed a new limit on families’ stays in temporary respite centers, like the Lexington Armory, to rein in the cost and scope of the massive government effort that costs the state about $1 billion a year, the Globe reported. She also capped the number of families who could stay to 7,500 families and their time in longer-term shelters to nine months.

Lexington supports the state’s efforts in sheltering new immigrants and homeless families, Jonas Miller, Lexington’s communications director, said in a statement to LexObserver. 

“The Town of Lexington remains committed to supporting the State in its operation of an emergency respite center located at the National Guard Armory,” he said. “While we maintain an open line of communication with the facility, the Town is not involved in the day-to-day management of the shelter or decisions about the housing status of individual families.”

The staff at MIRA remains optimistic that immigrants will be resilient throughout Trump’s administration. 

“Regardless of the changes that are coming, immigrants have shown incredible courage and adaptability,” Minter said. “We are facing four years of Trump and we cannot afford to give up.”