A federal judge in Boston today denied government requests to throw out a lawsuit by groups representing tens of thousands of Haitians, Guatemalans and Salvadorans that seeks to let them stay in the country for humanitarian reasons rather than be kicked out beginning next year. Read more.
The City Council today agreed to continue studying a proposal by Council President Andrea Campbell (Dorchester) to extend the right to vote in municipal elections to "immigrants with legal status." Read more.
CNN posted this video of Angelica Gonzalez-Garcia, a Guatemalan national, being reunited with her 8-year-old daughter at Logan this afternoon, 55 days after they were separated by immigration officials in Arizona - who let Gonzalez-Garcia fly to Massachusetts, where she is now staying in Framingham, but sent her daughter in Harlingen, Texas. Read more.
But in declarations filed in connection with a lawsuit in Washington state over the separations, officials in Boston, Chelsea and Somerville say they would need to dedicate special resources to help the kids overcome the trauma that comes from being forcibly removed from their parents. Read more.
Tens of thousands of Bostonians braved the heat and humidity today to rally at City Hall Plaza and on Boston Common to support immigrant families, especially the ones locked up and separated under the policies of the Trump administration. Read more.
Soon to be ex-School Superintendent Tommy Chang issued a statement today that reads, in its entirety: Read more.
Ayanna Pressley, the at-large city councilor who is running against incumbent US Rep Mike Capuano in the Seventh District, says it's time to bust up ICE, Boston Magazine reports.
The City Council voted unanimously today to condemn current federal policies on breaking up families at the border, after Councilor Michelle Wu (at large) broke down in tears today as she explained she's had trouble just leaving the house the past couple of days after watching all the news and after Councilor Josh Zakim (Beacon Hill, Back Bay, Fenway), whose family fled the Nazis two generations ago, said comparisons to the actions of Nazi Germany are "entirely appropriate." Read more.
Several groups have organized a protest at 12:30 p.m. in front of the State House to protest the Trump administration's decision to rip toddlers and other children from their parents at the border and put them in cages and tents.
NBC Boston reports the governor has changed his mind on sending even just a single helicopter and some support staff because of the "cruel and inhumane" Trump, his attorney general and ICE are breaking families apart as they come into the US.
One of the ways the Suffolk County Sherrif's Department makes money is to rent cells at the South Bay jail to ICE (a program started well before the current administration in Washington).
This afternoon, activists gathered outside the jail on Bradston Street for a vigil to protest the way the government is now ripping children from asylum-seeking parents at the border. Read more.
Ron Newman attended the Rally Against Family Separation at the State House today.
WBUR reports.
Cardinal O'Malley's complete statement, which concludes: Read more.
Immigrant children playing on the roof of the Washington School in the West End in 1909. See it larger.
Global Boston is an online exhibit by the Boston College history department on the history of Boston's immigrant communities that includes a look at specific groups and some of the neighborhoods they settled in, as well as a Boston immigration timeline. Read more.
NPR reports on undocumented Irish immigrants in Boston snapped up by ICE - even if they were brought here as children.
A woman walking her dog along Back Street in the Back Bay this afternoon spotted these two men with bandanas on their faces waltzing away from the Dartmouth Street overpass, where they'd just placed a "Deport Them All" banner over Storrow Drive. Read more.
At a Three Kings' Day celebration in City Hall, Mayor Walsh vowed to work on behalf of Salvadoran immigrants whom the federal government now wants to toss out of the country. Read more.
Students and teachers at the Boston Community Leadership Academy in Hyde Park have started raising funds for an 18-year-old student who is now behind bars at a Suffolk County jail as ICE attempts to boot him from the country. Read more.
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