In a dramatic State House session on July 29, Massachusetts lawmakers struck an eleventh-hour deal to move the Promoting Rights Of The Immigrant Community Through Enforcement-Limiting Collaboration and Training (PROTECT) Act to a final vote as early as Thursday. The compromise bill would codify and expand state-wide limits on cooperation with federal civil-immigration enforcement—most notably by barring local police from holding people on ICE detainers, questioning them about civil status, or allowing arrests in “sensitive locations” such as schools, hospitals and places of worship. The measure borrows heavily from the 2017 Lunn v. Commonwealth ruling, which found that state law provides no authority for warrant-less civil immigration arrests, but it goes further by creating an affirmative right to legal counsel before any custodial interview and by requiring that ICE warrant requests be signed by a federal judge. Supporters framed the bill as an urgent response to the loss of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for roughly 300,000 Haitians nationwide—more than 20,000 of whom live in Massachusetts—after DHS allowed the designation to lapse earlier this week. Health-care employers warned lawmakers that the state’s already strained elder-care sector could lose up to 2,000 certified nursing assistants almost overnight, while Haitian-American clergy described parishioners who have stopped going to work or school for fear of being swept up in workplace or courthouse raids. “Whether we like it or not, we’re in harm-reduction mode,” said Representative Andy Vargas, chair of the Black and Latino Legislative Caucus. The business community, led by the Massachusetts Senior Care Association and the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, has largely endorsed the measure, arguing that predictable state rules on law-enforcement cooperation are critical to keeping immigrant employees on the job and mitigating the economic shock of TPS terminations. Corporate mobility managers note that the bill’s due-process language mirrors internal relocation compliance protocols and could become a template for other talent-hungry states confronting sudden federal status changes. If the House and Senate give final approval, Massachusetts would join California, New York and Illinois in enshrining sanctuary-style protections in statute rather than executive order—raising the likelihood of an immediate legal challenge from the Trump Justice Department. State officials insist the bill merely clarifies the boundary between federal and local authority, but ICE Acting Director Michael Bentley told reporters the agency “will not hesitate” to subpoena records or enter public spaces if the law “obstructs legitimate enforcement.” Companies with Boston-area operations should therefore prepare for a short period of legal uncertainty in which location-based enforcement patterns could shift rapidly. For global-mobility teams, the takeaway is two-fold: First, employees with expiring TPS or other humanitarian statuses should consult counsel about alternative work-authorization options such as non-cap H-2B extensions or humanitarian parole. Second, employers should inventory worksites, hospitals and training centers that could qualify as sensitive locations under the Act and update internal response plans for ICE visits. Passage of the bill would also reinforce the importance of maintaining clear, written policies on when—and whether—HR staff may share I-9 or E-Verify information with non-criminal investigators.
Source: Axios Boston
