President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to carry out mass deportations will likely be subject to litigation and other legal fights, says Gov. Maura Healey, who sued his previous administration nearly 100 times as attorney general.
“Some realities need to be noted, and that is in 2016 we had a very different situation in the courts,” Healey told MSNBC anchor Lawrence O’Donnell. “While I’m sure there will be litigation ahead, there’s a lot of other ways people are going to act and need to act for the sake of their states and their residents.”
“There’s regulatory authority and executive powers,” she said on national television the night after Trump won re-election. “There’s also legislation within our states. The key here is that every tool in the toolbox is going to be used to protect our citizens … and certainly to hold the line on democracy and the rule of law as a basic principle.”
Healey’s animosity towards Trump is well documented. As attorney general, she sued his former administration 96 times, more than all but three of her counterparts from other states, the Globe reported in 2022.
Healey won 77% of those cases, the analysis found. Immigration ranked second with 13 total lawsuits, trailing 58 environment-related complaints.
In January 2017, days after Trump signed an executive order barring individuals from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the U.S., Healey filed a lawsuit challenging the ban’s constitutionality.
“The President’s executive order is a threat to our Constitution,” Healey said at the time. “Rather than protecting our national security, it stigmatizes those who would lawfully emigrate to our state.”
Healey joined other attorneys general as a coalition in filing additional immigration-related lawsuits. One focused on Trump’s attempt to exclude undocumented immigrants from census data, another on the separation of families at the southern border, among others.
Attorney General Andrea Campbell, Healey’s successor, told reporters her office spent time working ahead of last week’s election to “identify prospective threats” that could surface during Trump’s second term in the White House.
“We are an office that always strives to work in partnership and to be collaborative,” Campbell said last Wednesday, “but where someone violates the law, or the spirit of it, or violates the protections of our residents or the values we hold near and dear, we will fight for those, and we will do it, of course, in collaboration with AGs all across this country.”
Trump has said deporting the 11 million people estimated to be in the country illegally will be a top goal when he regains office in January.
Healey is adamant that the Massachusetts State Police won’t assist in those efforts, drawing a sharp rebuke from critics. The state’s top law enforcement has also said helping Trump’s deportation push is not part of its mission.
Elizabeth Sweet, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, said her organization will work “tirelessly” to protect immigrants during Trump’s next term.
This election cycle left immigrants “in a state of fear,” she said in a statement.
“Policies such as carrying out mass deportations, revoking humanitarian parole programs, and ending Temporary Protective Status are unjust and un-American,” Sweet wrote. “MIRA will not stand by quietly while our immigrant communities are under attack.”
Boston-based Lawyers for Civil Rights provides free legal support to people of color, immigrants and low-income people. Executive Director Iván Espinoza-Madrigal described the intervention as “among the most crucial” in the road ahead.
He highlighted how his firm sued the previous administration to “secure a nationwide injunction preventing the dismantlement of the Fair Housing Act,” “protect Temporary Protected Status,” “block immigration arrests in courthouses,” and “reunite children with their parents during the family separation crisis.”
“Time after time, we have filed lawsuits against the Trump Administration—as we would against any official, blue or red, who tramples on the Constitution,” Espinoza-Madrigal wrote in a statement
