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.
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Police and other law enforcement officers can request confidential or undercover license plates from the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles for their work vehicles. If another officer searches the plate number in a database, such as the RMV system or the Department of Criminal Justice Information System, no owner appears.
But the Trump administration says the Massachusetts RMV will not issue confidential plates to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s vehicles, GBH’s Sarah Betancourt exclusively reports. Jacqueline Manning, a spokesperson for Gov. Maura Healey, said that’s because ICE is not a criminal law enforcement agency.
“Any federal, state or local agency engaging in legitimate criminal law enforcement work can receive a confidential plate. We all know that’s not what ICE is doing,” Manning told Betancourt.
Assistant U.S. Attorney General Brett Shumate called the move “discriminatory policy” that is “not only deeply dangerous as a matter of public safety, but also blatantly unlawful as a matter of constitutional law.” The RMV will issue registrations and license plates to ICE’s parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, but only after confirming the vehicles will be used for criminal investigations, not civil immigration enforcement. You can read Betancourt’s full story here.
Four Things to Know
1. Massachusetts lost about 14,600 students between the fall of 2024 and October 2025, and 46% were in English language learner programs, according to a study by the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center. Massachusetts schools do not collect data on whether students are immigrants or from immigrant families, but English learner data can act as a proxy, said Anthony Clough, a K-12 and higher education analyst at MassBudget.
In Chelsea, school officials said they’ve seen families leave the country or move to states where they feel safer from ICE agents. “During those surges like Operation Patriot and Operation Patriot 2.0, our whole community knew that ICE was just hanging around on our street corners,” said Sarah Neville, a member of the Chelsea School Committee. “There was a time last October where ICE was actually hanging out in the parking lots of our elementary school all day,” she said, adding that it has happened less in recent months.
2. As Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard consider charging a fee on home sales to fund affordable housing, a study by the UMass Donahue Institute found a similar fee on Long Island did not hurt the real estate market.
“We didn’t really see an impact on either volume or prices when you compared it to neighboring communities [on] Long Island,” lead author Kerry Spitzer said.
3. A state disability board fined the Boston Housing Authority $363,000 for elevator outages at a South End housing complex. Boston will likely pay only 1% — $3,630. Board members said a higher fine could take away money the city needs to actually fix the elevators, according to advocates at the hearing.
The outages left seniors and residents with disabilities at the Ruth Barkley Apartments essentially trapped — once for two weeks and again over the Thanksgiving holiday. “It’s a real finding, but it’s also a symbolic victory,” said Dawn Oates, a disability advocate and founder of the nonprofit PlayBrigade.
4. Saint Michael’s College in Colchester, Vermont is trying a new way to attract students: an emergency services major for future firefighters or EMTs. Enrollment at the school is down nearly half over the past 10 years, and administrators hope the focus will attract students who might otherwise choose larger schools or skip college.
The college is also consolidating programs and offering tuition comparable to in-state rates to attract students. “The vast majority of our students who we admit and don’t matriculate here go to large flagship schools,” said Saint Michael’s president Richard Plumb. “Fine. We’ll charge the same tuition.”
Malden’s unique mix of restaurants and gaming grew from its immigrant population
By Meghan Smith, senior digital producer, GBH News
When we launched our Gateway Cities project, we were excited by how many people wanted to share pride in their cities and what makes them special. When someone commented on our video about Malden, we were intrigued: “Malden has blown up in Asian eateries in the past decade and a half. How did that happen and what caused this?”
I teamed up with our video team to find out, and discovered a story about immigration playing out across many Gateway Cities. As Asian immigrants were priced out of Boston’s Chinatown, they moved south to Quincy and north to Malden, bringing restaurants with them. Now, a walk around downtown Malden lets you “taste the world,” with Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Korean and Arabic cuisine.
While we spent time in Malden, we discovered something else: the city is home to the one-of-a-kind Malden Gaming District, with businesses where you can play video games, rock climb and sing karaoke. We also learned that Malden is home to one of the biggest hubs of Pokémon Go in New England: players meet up to walk around downtown together and play multiple times a week.
Much of the growth in gaming is due to city support — Mayor Gary Christenson, who was born and raised in Malden, is an avid gamer and often joins the Pokémon Go meetups. He’s also learning Mandarin to engage with residents. Malden is now one of the most diverse cities in the state – full of good food and fun. We’re excited to tell more stories about how Gateway Cities are evolving.
You can watch our full video tour here.
Want us to come to your Gateway City next? Reach out to us at equityandjustice@wgbh.org orfill out this questionnaire.
More on Gateway Cities:
-Artists find affordable housing in Fitchburg amid city effort to welcome creatives
-‘The opportunity is here’: Inside the state effort that’s transforming Gateway Cities
-Gateway to prosperity: What’s next for Massachusetts’ Gateway Cities?
