Massachusetts Jews Urge Governor Healey to take immediate and decisive action to protect all Massachusetts residents from ICE & pass PROTECT Act
March 4, 2026
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Read CJFS’s Letter to the Governor Healey
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BOSTON – In a letter from Concerned Jewish Faculty & Staff (CJFS), hundreds of Jewish residents from across Massachusetts are calling on Governor Maura Healey to “take immediate and decisive action to protect all Massachusetts residents from ICE.” The letter comes the same day the legislature is holding a public hearing to consider the PROTECT Act, a bill introduced by the Massachusetts Black and Latino Legislative Caucus and has garnered widespread support..
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The CJFS letter situates the call to resist ICE within Jewish tradition and Biblical commands to treat migrants “just like the native born among you.” The Jewish signatories also note that Governor Healey’s actions against ICE are inseparable from her commitment to combat antisemitism: “ICE’s escalating campaign of terror . . . is inseparable from the antisemitic beliefs and conspiracy theories” that animate the Trump administration’s xenophobia and anti-immigrants agenda.
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Earlier this year, Governor Healey announced “her own moves to curb ICE activity.” The letter from CJFS and Jewish residents demands that Healey do more, and do so immediately. The letter calls on the Governor to take four specific actions:
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Publicly declare Massachusetts a sanctuary state;
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Cancel all existing 287(g) agreements with ICE;
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Instruct all state employees not to cooperate with Federal immigration enforcement absent a judicial order;
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Spearhead the passage of the PROTECT ACT and the Dignity Not Deportations Act.
The letter criticizes Governor Healey’s failure to terminate the existing 287(g) agreement between ICE and the state’s Department of Corrections. This failure renders Massachusetts an outlier relative to other Blue states that have abolished all such agreements with ICE. As the letter notes, “[u]pon taking office last month, Virginia Governor Spanberger canceled the participation of state agencies in the 287(g) program, and VA officials are considering legislation to bar local police and sheriffs from participating.” Nothing other than a lack of political will is preventing Governor Healey from taking equally decisive action in Massachusetts.
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Last December, Governor Healey stated that “We must [act in the face of antisemitism] because we've seen what the alternative is. We know what happens, we know it from history.” Against this backdrop, CJFS’s letter closes by reminding Governor Healey that “history tells us that violent demagoguery against ‘the other’ is soon directed at all minority communities. The time for equivocating is past. If you want to lead the fight against antisemitism, you must fight to protect every resident of our state. That starts with getting ICE out of Massachusetts.”
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