MassGOP Denounces Legislature’s Rejection of Commonsense Amendment Allowing State Authorities to Cooperate with ICE

4.29.25

Boston, MA – For the second time in less than a year, House Democrats led by Speaker Ron Mariano (D-Quincy) have voted down a commonsense amendment by Republicans that would have empowered state law enforcement officers to partner with U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement around federal detainers for illegal immigrants suspected of violent and heinous crimes.

 

Budget Amendment 554, sponsored by Minority Leader Brad Jones (R-North Reading) and advocated for on the floor by Assistant Minority Leader Paul Frost (R-Auburn), would have authorized any “employee of the commonwealth who holds police or sheriff powers who has lawful custody of a person to detain the person for up to 12 hours upon receipt of a written detention request from ICE and an administrative warrant for arrest or warrant for removal or deportation.”

 

The legislation’s defeat followed an earlier rejection of proposals by Jones, Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester), and Sen. Ryan Fattman (R-Sutton) in October 2024. All were narrowly tailored to give state authorities maximum discretion to determine which illegal immigrants facing only the most serious and violent crimes would meet the standards for state-federal cooperation around an ICE detainer.

 

“Rather than endorse a commonsense approach to dealing with the spate of violent crimes committed by illegal immigrants harbored in Massachusetts, Democrats would rather bury their heads in the sand about a problem that continues to persist long after the migrant shelter crisis hit its high-water mark,” said MassGOP Chair Amy Carnevale. “Speaker Mariano and the one-party supermajority has a habit of adopting GOP proposals for immigration reform only after disastrous consequences and cost overruns. I hope Democratic leadership does not wait for even more violent tragedies to occur in our Commonwealth before they finally wake up to the crisis we’re facing.”

 

BACKGROUND:

 

On Tuesday, House Democrats voted down Leader Jones’s amendment to reform the 2017 Lunn decision, which bars state court officers from detaining individuals solely on ICE requests, resulting in dangerous offenders—some who have already been convicted of serious crimes—being released with the potential to reoffend. (State House News, 2/29/25)

 

No action was taken on similar proposals by Leader Jones, Leader Tarr, and Sen. Fattman introduced in October 2024. (MassGOP, 10/21/24)

 

Just this month, ICE raids have resulted in the arrest of over 370 individuals, some of whom have been charged with or convicted of murder, drug trafficking, organized crime, money laundering. drug trafficking, and assaulting a police officer. (USCIS, 4/2/25)

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