Cambridge’s status as a sanctuary city – it’s one of the oldest such designations – was reaffirmed Monday by a City Council preparing for four years with Donald Trump in the White House.
Councillors voted unanimously to send letters to city departments and organizations working with immigrants to remind them of the status and the importance of treating immigrants with respect and dignity – including that Cambridge police won’t participate voluntarily in federal immigration enforcement and access to city services will not be predicated on immigration status.
Cambridge first declared itself a sanctuary city in 1985, reaffirming the status in 2006, 2016 and 2020.
“We’re hearing more and more out of the incoming president-elect that he’s not just talking about undocumented immigrants anymore. He’s talking about birthright citizenship. He’s talking about deporting entire families, even if some members of those families are legally here and documented,” vice mayor Marc McGovern said. About 28 percent of Cambridge residents were born outside of the United States, his order noted.
“These are our community members,” said councillor Sumbul Siddiqui, calling for assurances that nobody has to feel like they can’t go to a food pantry or access other services, especially education for their children, because of immigration status. Mayor E. Denise Simmons noted the School Committee has already adopted an even broader resolution in support of families. “In my service on the School Committee, there’s a lot of families that are really in a challenging situation,” councillor Patty Nolan said.
The order didn’t mean the city won’t cooperate with police or the federal government if an undocumented person is arrested for a felony. “It does not harbor criminals,” McGovern emphasized. But it was an implicit call not to scapegoat immigrants, considering “the crime rate in Cambridge has gone down, and we’ve been a sanctuary city since the ’80s.”
It does mean that an undocumented person won’t be deported over a traffic violation, and more importantly, that they won’t be at risk if they are the victim of a crime and report it. Immigrants, even if they are here legally, are often afraid of reporting crimes. In a city with as many immigrants as Cambridge, making sure everyone feels comfortable calling the police when they or someone they know has been a victim is crucial to preserving public order, councillors said. Cities with sanctuary policies have also seen significant reductions in the number of domestic homicides committed against Hispanic women.
Cambridge’s initial impulse to become a sanctuary city came after stories emerged of people fleeing violence in Haiti and El Salvador in 1985 and council members did not want those people forced to return to their home countries. After Trump’s first election in 2016, he said he would end federal funding for sanctuary cities, although this was blocked by a federal judge in 2017.
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What if Cambridge decided to protect people driving without a driver’s licence? We could become a “Sanctuary City for Undocumented Drivers”. We’d make arguments like, “Drivers cannot be illegal, they are our community members!”. We’d reject Healey’s distasteful DMV, and not support their so-called “laws”. Does that sound ridiculous?
Maintaining our status is vital to the stability of our social structure here in the city. Trump wants to be a dictator and resistance at every level is necessary to such ridiculous policies in VIOLATION of the Constitution. No President should be able to override the constitution by a unanimous decree, changes to the Constitution requires a complex procedure to be followed and voted upon appropriately for amendment. There is a reason why there are checks and balances in the system and protections for everyone under the law.
Trump’s own mother was an illegal alien. His own wife was working illegally without a work visa in this country before he married her. He obviously believes himself to always have been above the law and this is NOT how the system is supposed to work.
Protect your neighbors rights and privacy and treat them with respect is some of the most reasonable advice I have heard in quite some time and which we need to get behind.
@Barkolab
Good thing MA already did the much smarter thing of allowing undocumented residents get drivers licenses.
Barkolab you seem obsessed with one subject which is not the responsibility of the City Council rather than the actions of the council that the article is about. You sound like a broken record, and probably a Trumpie. If you don’t like the City or the State decisions that are supported by the people of this state feel free to go move to a Trumpie state.