As Massachusetts gears up for a second Donald Trump administration, advocates and officials are preparing for the statewide impacts of potential federal changes to the immigration system. Someone at the helm of that work is Elizabeth Sweet, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant & Refugee Advocacy Coalition.
MIRA serves as a membership coalition of more than 140 organizations that advocate for policies and changes supporting immigrant and refugee rights in Massachusetts. Over the past year, immigration has been at the forefront of Bay Staters’ minds — the influx of migrants into the shelter system and the increase of new arrivals have occurred in the context of an ongoing and persistent housing crisis.
The Trump administration has expressed its support for mass deportations and rescinding legal status. Recent statistics show that around 18 percent of Massachusetts residents are foreign-born, and that immigrants make up more than 21 percent of Massachusetts’s labor force.
In a recent conversation with the News Service, Sweet spoke about how MIRA is preparing for 2025 and how Trump’s last administration could inform his next one.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Q: You took the helm of the MIRA Coalition in 2022. Since then, how have you seen the scope of your job change?
A: I came in when we were still navigating the impact of COVID on the immigrant community and all communities across Massachusetts, but transitioning out of that time, I think we have actually seen this significant increase in the number of immigrants coming to Massachusetts — and the challenge and opportunity for the state around our immigrant growth here. We see so much opportunity for the state, at least from MIRA’s perspective, with the need that we have in our workforce right now, the fact that we continue to have more jobs than we have folks looking for work. Also, a lot of our state resources have been really stretched to meet the needs.
Q: Looking forward to the incoming Trump administration, how could your work, and the lives of immigrants you work with, change?
A: As soon as we heard the news about Trump’s election, it really sent huge shockwaves through immigrant communities. We heard in the days following the election just so much fear. People are afraid of what’s coming. They’re afraid, for some folks, that they could lose a status, that they could be at risk for being arrested, potentially detained, potentially deported, and could be facing family separation. And especially, I think, it’s the uncertainty of it all — of what he will actually do, and how many of these policies he will push forward, how quickly and how many folks will be affected. Folks are, very reasonably, quite scared and overwhelmed at what might be coming. Immigrants are [also] so critical to our workforce and our economy here and there is a real risk that if significant numbers of folks are targeted and potentially deported, we’re going to see a real impact in our economy overall.
Q: While that fear exists, some think that progressive states like Massachusetts might try to put protections in place to limit Donald Trump’s attempts at mass deportations. In your eyes, to what degree is Massachusetts at the mercy of those overarching federal changes?
A: It’s complicated. Immigration policy is very much set at the federal level. We’ve seen the impact of that where, for example, these past couple of years, our state leaders have been very anxious to get new immigrants work permits quickly, and yet we’re dependent on the federal processing time for those work permits. I think we’re going to see a much greater impact of federal policy in the coming years. The reality is that there is a lot of power, fully at the federal level, around how Trump could go about doing this. That said, some of our leaders have already spoken up that they are doing what they can to protect folks, and we’re certainly advocating for policies that we think could help protect folks and minimize how much of an impact we feel here in Massachusetts. We’re hopeful that some of this goodwill in the state will translate to some actual protections.
Q: What kind of policies are you putting your support behind?
A: MIRA Coalition has long advocated for a bill called the Safe Communities Act. It’s a bill that particularly helps pull apart our local and state police and any involvement that they might have in immigration enforcement — keeping that as something that really is handled by federal, trained immigration agents, [making sure] that our local and state police are very separate from that. There are a number of cities, Boston being one, that have passed a Trust Act, which is similar at the city level. And there certainly are opportunities for more cities across Massachusetts to pass similar bills. And then, of course, we hope to see that at the state level.
Q: You mentioned the contribution of immigrants to the workforce in Massachusetts, and how the economy could be impacted should mass deportations happen. How much of an impact do you expect? Where do you see that taking effect the most across the state?
A: Our immigrants are contributing to our economy at every level. Immigrants, specifically, are a huge part of our STEM sector. They are a huge part of our hospitality sector. [They are a part of] so many different parts of our economy. And sometimes people underestimate how significant the economic contributions of, say, undocumented immigrants are. The data shows that in 2022, undocumented immigrants contributed $650 million into Massachusetts. The reality is that if some of these folks are being targeted and sent home, there isn’t going to be that replacement. Who’s going to take those jobs, who’s going to be making those economic contributions?
Q: The Republican Party says they’re planning to focus specifically on criminal enforcement when it comes to deportations. What are your thoughts on that conversation and where can the line sometimes get blurred?
A: Sometimes we hear that folks are thinking of someone who simply crossed the border, you know, trying to provide enough food for their family. That it was a crime that they crossed the border — and that’s not a crime. In the immigration system, it’s not an actual misdemeanor or felony to have simply crossed the border. So I think the rhetoric gets complicated. There’s also so many folks who have come here and who have some type of status here, and those folks are being targeted also. I think especially with the way Trump has spoken about things, it feels as though he is attempting to target very broad sections of the immigrant populations here and not be so specific in his targeting.
Q: How can what happened last time Trump was in office potentially inform the future for people with status, like DACA recipients or those who already have temporary protected status in the U.S.?
A: During the first Trump administration, he attempted to take away status from a number of different populations and then also limit who could access certain types of status. For example, here in Massachusetts, where we have a huge Haitian population, MIRA actually just finished a huge series of legal clinics where we’ve been helping folks apply for temporary protected status and obtain it. And so we now know that these thousands of folks have gotten this status. The status is only good for 18 months, and so the reality is, their status is going to come up, it’s going to expire in the second year of Trump’s time in office. It’s very likely that he will choose to not renew that status, regardless of what the conditions might be back in Haiti, which is supposed to be what determines whether that status is given. So there’s a lot of folks who are at risk [and who] could lose the status they have. He certainly has threatened to take away DACA status, that’s something that has been making its way through the court system, and so we’ll have to see what happens with those court cases.
Q: Are there any other aspects of this transition that you’re preparing for?
A: We also expect that there could be targeting by this administration of the refugee system and the asylum protection system. There are a lot of ways that they could further put more barriers toward people getting asylum, and reduce the number of refugees who are able to come into this country, which is something we saw in the first Trump administration. [It would] sort of potentially really be pulling back from the protection that this country has often stood for in the world.
We’re also really concerned about the very real risk in a Trump administration of more anti-immigrant words, and potentially more — that immigrants could be victims of hate incidents, or at least really negative, xenophobic language. We already saw this incident where Springfield, Ohio was targeted, and the Haitian community there, and some of the effects of that. And so we’re really concerned about more of that kind of rhetoric happening and what that could mean for people’s lives.
Q: How could the refugee system change compared to all that we’ve talked about regarding the immigration system? In the last Trump administration, how did the process change for refugees and asylum seekers?
A: Each year, the administration sets a cap on how many refugees can be brought in. This past federal fiscal year under Biden, we brought in more than 100,000 refugees into this country over the year, and that’s spread across all the states. During the Trump administration, every year of the administration, that number was lowered. In the last year, it was something like 15,000 refugees were brought in. It was so dramatically lower than just a few years before. It’s a place where there’s so much discretion for the administration. And what was really challenging is even more than lowering the numbers, lowering all the funding associated with it meant that the whole sort of infrastructure of the program was pulled back, and so then once Biden came in and did want to increase the number of refugees, it was challenging for all the organizations to then rescale up if they laid off staff and just didn’t have certain programs anymore. It’s challenging to rebuild also.
Q: What are you hearing from people on the ground, from the organizations who are part of MIRA?
A: Something that we are doing, and a lot of our partners and member organizations are doing, is putting a huge emphasis on Know Your Rights programs and training. We’ve created a whole set of materials that help explain to immigrants what their rights are — if they do have encounters with law enforcement or with immigration officials, what they can do to protect themselves, what they have to answer, what they don’t have to answer, etc.
Q: What do you is one of the most misconstrued ideas about the system, and these processes, as they stand now?
A: I think there’s a big misconception about how the pathways to obtain legal status in this country are very limited, and they’re very difficult for so many folks. And so the idea that for some folks, where they may have actually gotten to a place of having a secure status, and then losing it is just incredibly tragic for so many people and for their families.
Q: Where does Massachusetts land in this conversation compared to the rest of the country?
A: One thing in terms of comparison is definitely that we actually are one of the states with a higher percentage of foreign-born folks. I don’t know if everyone realizes that, but I think that we have a more significant percentage of our state who are immigrants, and we’ve had more growth in that percentage than a lot of other states over recent years. We also have a really diverse immigrant population here, which I think of as such a huge asset to the state, because we have folks who come to Massachusetts because of our incredible universities here, and our biotech and so much more. So our diverse immigrant population brings a lot of strength to the state and we’re at risk to lose some of that.