Amid the turmoil of Donald Trump's early presidency, there is no doubt that noncitizens are in the administration’s crosshairs. This is consistent with candidate Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric. Still, few outside his inner circle could have predicted the scope, breadth and swiftness of the president’s actions. With three executive orders in his first week, Donald Trump rocked the lives of noncitizens. His orders seem intent on walling off the United States from its southern neighbor and preventing the entry of nationals from some majority-Muslim countries. After a federal appeals court enjoined Trump's executive order banning travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries, the president signed a revised order Monday, dropping Iraq from the list of banned countries. The new order also exempts all green-card and current visa holders. But Trump didn't reserve his animus for those outside the United States. One of his directives targets those noncitizens already within our nation’s newly erected walls by attempting to require local and state law enforcement to enforce immigration laws. The order discards with the Obama administration’s enforcement priorities — making all noncitizens fair game for immigration enforcement — and threatens to withhold federal funding from jurisdictions whose police refuse to detain any individual who sparks the suspicion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Complying with these federal detention requests damages the relationship between police and noncitizen community members and their allies, and takes up police time that should be used to enforce state criminal law. It also taxes local financial resources, since cities and states are expected to foot the bill for detention. Fortunately, the Massachusetts Legislature has the means to protect its immigrant population from these federal-state immigration enforcement partnerships by passing the Safe Communities Act, sponsored by Sen. James Eldridge.

Fortunately, the Massachusetts Legislature has the means to protect its immigrant population from these federal-state immigration enforcement partnerships by passing the Safe Communities Act ...

While some of our cities, like Boston, Somerville and Cambridge, already have policies protective of immigrants, the Safe Communities Act would make all of Massachusetts a “sanctuary state." This means that state and local law enforcement and other officials could not cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, except in very limited circumstances where required by federal law. The act would keep state and local police out of the business of immigration enforcement, allowing them retain their resources to enforce criminal laws. This is also a wise policy since jurisdictions that have previously complied with immigration mandates to detain individuals have later faced lawsuits for violations of those detainees’ constitutional rights — an expense of time, money and goodwill. Experience also demonstrates that the commingling of federal immigrant enforcement is risky because immigrant residents become less likely to report crime to local and state law enforcement for fear of becoming entangled in deportation proceedings.

Economists confirm that the long-term effect of increased immigrant labor within a state leads to a rise in income for U.S.-born workers who move to new, higher-paying positions created as the labor market absorbs additional workers.