An Advocate’s Toolkit for Analyzing Immigration Enforcement Policies and Pushing Local Leaders for Change
April 2026
These are not normal times; this is a moment of serious democratic backsliding by our federal government. Part of this backsliding includes federal focus and investments toward detaining and deporting immigrants with an intensity never seen before. Immigration enforcement is controlled by the federal government and is not supposed to be the role of local law enforcement. Some elected officials, including the Governor, Attorney General, and the Boston Mayor have expressed their support of the immigrant community as well as concern over Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) practices. At the same time, however, many local police and sheriff departments share information with and collaborate with federal immigration enforcement, with local law enforcement effectively acting as ‘force multipliers’ for the federal deportation regime. Research has shown that local collaboration with ICE does not improve public safety, rather it discourages people from contacting the police and discourages people from coming forward as a witness to a crime.
While there is hope that the Massachusetts Legislature will pass laws to provide state level guardrails to ICE communication and collaboration (such as through the PROTECT Act (H.5316)), municipal level advocacy can help put pressure on your city or town's police department to update policies and improve practice to be more protective of our immigrant neighbors. Even if the PROTECT Act passes, municipalities will need to implement the changes, and can always go further to protect our immigrant community members.
This toolkit provides a step-by-step approach for learning about, analyzing, and advocating to make changes to your town’s police policies to limit communication and collaboration with ICE.
The types of policies that can constrain police collaboration are:
Police department policies - Internal department policies issued by a Police Chief and enforced by the police department.
Municipal ordinances and resolutions - Legislative acts passed by a town council. Ordinances create binding law that is enforced by the city, while resolutions represent an unenforceable statement.
Mayoral executive orders - Created and implemented by a town's mayor; Executive Orders are legally binding directives.
You can navigate to other parts of this toolkit using the tabs to the left.
Continue on to the Police Policies tab.
For more information or support, please contact Joshua Dankoff at joshuadankoff@cfjj.org
Changing police policy is important, however it is not a magical solution to police surveillance. Surveillance information collected by the Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC) and Massachusetts Fusion Center, as well as license plate readers used by Flock and other companies continue to pose major concerns for the safety and freedom of everyone regardless of immigration status. To find more information about fusion centers in Massachusetts and what can be done to eliminate them, click here.