Massachusetts political leaders are ramping up messaging against federal agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as the Trump Administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration continues.
The federal agency is under attack from Bay State Democrats, including the likes of U.S. Senate candidate and Congressman Seth Moulton (MA-06), Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) and Governor Maura Healey, who all claim ICE has acted “inhumanely” towards detainees and those they seek to arrest.
This week, Gov. Healey sent a letter to ICE leadership, demanding they stop using private aircraft at Hanscom Field airport in Bedford to remove illegal immigrants they have detained.
“It has come to my attention that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as part of its disturbing and anti-American deportation tactics, is using private aircrafts at Hanscom Field airport in Massachusetts to quickly remove residents and sever them from their family, friends, and counsel without due process of law,” Healey wrote in her letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, whose department oversees ICE, and Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons.
“Flying these residents out of state and away from their support systems and legal counsel — often within hours of arrest — is intentionally cruel and purposely obstructs the due process and legal representation they are owed. This is not the justice we believe in or stand for in Massachusetts or as Americans. This practice must stop,” she said, going on to claim that “a significant majority of people detained by ICE in Massachusetts over the past year have no criminal convictions or charges.”
The Massachusetts Democratic Party is echoing Healey’s call, calling the ICE deportation flights out of Hanscom a “disregard for due process.”
“The Department of Homeland Security’s use of unmarked private planes to rapidly remove ICE detainees at Hanscom is yet another example of the Trump administration’s disregard for due process. We know that 73 percent of individuals detained by ICE have no criminal history. They are people who live and work and are part of the fabric of our communities,” said MassDems Chair Steve Kerrigan. “Through these unmarked removal flights, the Trump administration continues to circumvent the legal process, transporting individuals thousands of miles away from their families and legal counsel.”
One illegal immigrant recently detained and set to be deported by ICE sent a 63-year old woman flying nearly 80-feet and has left her intubated with a brain bleed at Massachusetts General Hospital. The horrific hit-and-run happened on December 7, when 23-year old Peruvian national Brando Diaz-Sanchez struck the victim and never stopped. He had been driving without a driver’s license and had been charged with reckless driving less than two months prior. He entered the U.S. in 2022 during the Biden Administration, whose immigration policies have been derided as “catch and release” by Republicans
The battle with ICE doesn’t stop with the governor’s office. Congressman Seth Moulton has filed legislation that would allow those detained by ICE agents to sue them in federal court.
The bill, the National Oversight and Enforcement of Misconduct (NOEM) Act, named after DHS Secretary Noem, would allow detainees whose constitutional rights were violated by federal immigration enforcement officers to sue those officers in federal court. Moulton’s office says the legislation would ensure ICE and other federal immigration officers can be held liable in the same way any state or local law enforcement officer would be when they violate the constitutional rights of detainees.
“Right now, if an ICE officer violates someone’s Fourth or Fifth Amendment rights, victims have almost no legal recourse,” Moulton said in a press release. “The NOEM Act fixes that. ICE is not above the law — and if its officers break the law, they should be held accountable in court.”
Moulton introduced the legislation just weeks after a highly-publicized feud with ICE and Acting Director Lyons after the congressman called for the agency to be prosecuted.
The Herald has reached out to ICE for comment on Moulton’s bill. The agency had some strong words about it already, posted Saturday on its official X account.
“Congressman, our ICE officers and agents enforce the laws YOU pass and we arrest the criminals who break the laws YOU pass,” the post stated. “Why are you so keen on defending criminal illegal alien murderers, rapists, drug dealers, child sex offenders — the WORST of the worst we’re taking off your streets to protect YOUR constituents?”
Moulton’s 2026 primary competitor, Senator Ed Markey, has also taken aim at the immigration agency. During a rally at Faneuil Hall in Boston on Friday, he said “Massachusetts won’t be complicit in ICE cruelty.”
“What we are seeing is immigration enforcement masquerading as authoritarianism. The Trump Administration has sought to end birthright citizenship, dehumanize immigrants with racist rhetoric and unleash masked ICE agents into our communities, violently abducting innocent people,” Markey said. “I’ve pressed the Boston field office and ICE leadership on ICE’s aggressive tactics, its brutal dragnet approach to enforcement, and the lack of transparency and accountability that we are seeing, and I am going to continue to demand answers from them that hold ICE accountable for their actions.”
Last month, the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security heard oral arguments in support of the Safe Communities Act, which would prohibit state and local law enforcement from notifying ICE about illegal immigrants in non-criminal matters.
