This is a web edition of GBH Daily, a weekday newsletter bringing you local stories you can trust so you can stay informed without feeling overwhelmed.
🥶Sunny and cold, with highs in the 30s. Sunset is at 5:01 p.m. — the first post-5 p.m. sunset of the year.
Gloucester will add the names of seven people who died when a fishing boat called the Lily Jean sank 25 miles off Cape Ann on Friday to a memorial for fishermen lost at sea. The U.S. Coast Guard suspended the search for the people on board the Lily Jean on Saturday, and is investigating why it sank.
The people on board were: Captain Accursio “Gus” Sanfilippo, crew members Paul Beal Sr., Paul Beal Jr., John Rousanidis, Freeman Short and Sean Therrien, and Jada Samitt, a fisheries observer for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“In the back of our minds it always sits there that there is a possibility that you will not come home and it sits there with everyone,” Gloucester’s city council president, Tony Gross, told GBH’s Craig LeMoult. Gross worked as a fisherman for decades. “We keep it in the backs of our mind, but it’s never far away and then this just pushes it right up front.”
Four Things to Know
1. A ballot question that would lower Massachusetts taxes from 5% to 4% over three years is heading to court because people opposing the measure say the state Attorney General’s summary of the measure left out a key point. The summary says the tax cut would apply to interest and dividends, as well as wages and salaries, but it leaves out that taxes on long-term capital gains income would also go down.
Proponents of the measure say it will give Massachusetts taxpayers an average tax cut of $1,300 a year; opponents say it would cost the state $5 billion — about 8% of this year’s total budget, which paired with federal budget cuts would likely force the state to cut services.
2. A group of Boston-area organizations that work with immigrants is suing the Trump administration over a policy memo saying ICE agents can attempt to enter people’s homes without judicial warrants. “We were able to once tell people that they have a right to not open the door, to asking for warrants signed by the judge with their names — but now we can’t,” said Lenita Reason, executive director of the Brazilian Worker Center, one of the organizations filing the lawsuit.
The lawsuit is especially urgent because thousands of Haitian immigrants in Massachusetts with legal status are scheduled to lose their permission to live and work in the U.S. today. The Trump administration decided not to renew the Temporary Protected Status program for Haitians, including 19,000 people in Massachusetts. “They’re essentially sitting ducks. Their doors could be knocked down at any moment,” said Brooke Simone, staff attorney for Lawyers for Civil Rights.
3. Let’s check in on the MBTA Communities Act and the lawsuit Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell filed last week against nine towns that have not changed their zoning laws to allow multi-family housing. In the North Shore town of Middleton, Town Administrator Justin Sultzbach said he believes the town should not be included in the law because it’s not adjacent to a commuter rail stop. “Middleton is not anti-housing. ... We’re doing everything we can do to cooperate,” Sultzbach said. “The state is not meeting us at the table.”
In nearby Wilmington, and farther south in East Bridgewater, town officials said voters rejected zoning changes multiple times. “The Act has actually had the unfortunate effect of making housing a more divisive issue in communities like East Bridgewater, which will impede future efforts to build more housing,” attorney John Clifford said. And in Holden, near Worcester, Town Manager Peter Lukes said the town has votes scheduled and the lawsuit likely won’t speed them up. “We find solace in assuming that there must be a massive lack of crime or more serious legal matters for the Attorney General’s office to be pursuing,” Lukes said.
4. The Boston Symphony Orchestra and its music director Andris Nelsons won two Grammy awards this weekend: Best Orchestral Performance for their recording of Messiaen’s Turangalila-Symphonie and Best Classical Instrumental Solo for their Shostakovich Cello Concertos album, recorded with cellist Yo-Yo Ma. The orchestra now has a total of 13 Grammy awards.
“Historically, it’s very important,” said Anthony Fogg, vice president of artistic planning. “Not only for musical performers in many genres, but also the whole sort of technical team that goes into doing, producing a recording. So we’ve been very lucky over the years.”
Lawyers suggest more ways Healey can limit ICE activity
Last week Gov. Maura Healey signed an executive order saying ICE cannot delegate its immigration enforcement jobs to local police departments in the state through what are called 287(g) agreements. She also introduced a bill that would ban federal immigration agents from detaining people in state courthouses and would limit their operations in places like schools and churches.
GBH’s Boston Public Radio spoke with two local lawyers, Leah Hastings of Prisoners’ Legal Services and Sarah Sherman-Stokes from the Boston University School of Law, who had more ideas for how Massachusetts can limit ICE activity at the state level.
One possible step: reviewing centers created after the 9/11 attacks that allow local police departments to share information with federal law enforcement. Massachusetts has two such places, called fusion centers: the Commonwealth Fusion Center in the State Police Department and the Boston Regional Intelligence Center, also known as BRIC.
“This directly feeds people into the deportation machine,” Sherman-Stokes said. “If we really cared about communities of color being targeted by ICE, we would end the BRIC.”
Another possibility: ending the 287(g) agreement Massachusetts prisons have with federal immigration authorities. “We have a criminal legal system. Just because people have interacted with the criminal legal system doesn’t mean that they should be deprived of dignity,” Sherman-Stokes said. “It doesn’t mean they should be deprived of due process. It doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to stay here and make a life with their families in Massachusetts.”
Healey last week said she would not support ending that agreement, GBH’s Katie Lannan reports: “I think it is appropriate to have an agreement that says, look, if you’re here undocumented, you commit a crime, you’re prosecuted, and you’re sentenced to prison in the Department of Correction, at the end of that sentence, OK, I think it is appropriate for our Department of Correction to notify ICE ... and to give ICE the opportunity to take into custody and deport that individual,” Healey said.
Hear their full conversation here.
Dig deeper:
-Healey seeks to limit courthouse immigration arrests, cooperation with ICE
-Hundreds rally in Boston in solidarity with Minnesota ICE protests
-During national day of protests, Maine nurses host vigil in memory of Alex Pretti
GBH Daily
Your essential daily newsletter delivering trusted news, local insights, ways to connect, and can't miss programs from Boston and beyond.
