ICE Arrests are Surging – Spread the Word, Grow the Opposition

Our goal is to keep ICE’s increasing lawlessness on the front pages of the news. Letters to the editor let publications know what readers care about.

Some Background Info:

• Our observers at Hanscom have seen a significant uptick in the number of ICE deportation flights passing through Hanscom Airfield.
• The New York Times has reported a “quiet” surge, as ICE arrests approaching 2,000 daily nationwide.
• AP News and Boston Globe report a surge to 50,000 arrests in July.
• Todd Palmer from Justice4All Thursdays has done a tremendous job detailing where and how much those surges are occurring.

Tips

• Your letter should be a personal account of the ICE surge – why it matters supported by evidence/data.
• Where possible reference an article from the paper you are targeting.

Data to Include

*from Todd Palmer’s substack and other cited sources

• > 9,783 total arrests have occurred in MA from 1/20/2025 thru 8/6/2026.
• In 2024, 11% of the people arrested had convictions for violent crimes and 25% had convictions for nonviolent crimes. 
• In 2026, those numbers have fallen to 2.6% convicted of violent crimes and 11% for nonviolent crimes.
• People with no convictions rose from 63%  in 2024 to 87% in 2026.
• ICE arrests jumped to nearly 50,000 in July, the highest monthly total of Trump’s second term (AP News and Boston Globe).

Send Letters  to the Boston Globe:

letter@globe.com

Length: Keep your letter to 200 words or less.

Content: Letters should be written exclusively for the Globe and typically respond to a recent article, editorial, or opinion piece previously published in the paper.

Required Info: Include your full name, street address, and a telephone number for verification purposes (phone numbers are not published). 

Send Letters to the Boston Herald

letterstoeditor@bostonherald.com or by using their online Boston Herald Letter Submission Form. 

Include details: Provide your full name, phone number, email address, and city or town of residence. Newspapers typically call to verify your identity before printing.

Keep it brief: Succinct letters are preferred and more likely to be published.

Exclusivity: Letters should generally be written exclusively for the Herald.

Send Letters to Local Papers

If you live in one of the towns of abutting Hanscom, letters to the local papers would also be much appreciated.

The Metrowest Worker Center (“Casa”) needs to raise immediate funds for direct support to immigrant families affected by workplace injury / unjust labor practices, ongoing housing, legal and other crises including the recent wave of ICE aggression in our communities. 

Families have been torn apart and community systems de-stabilized by these recent immigration sweeps leading to the aggressive detention and incarceration of individuals who not only serve as family breadwinners, but also as community pillars. Their challenges–including cruel detention by federal authorities–translate to costly legal expenses, housing and food insecurity, children losing parents, medical and transportation challenges, as well as the need for emotional comfort and mental health support.

Your generous donations will go directly to families & individuals* requiring: 

• Housing Needs
• Food Support
• Medical care & Associated Costs
• Transportation to school & important appointments 
• Legal services
• Crisis support
• And the everyday needs now made difficult by devastating events

*Funds go directly into the community in the form of mutual aid checks and life giving goods & services, and not towards Casa’s general operating costs.

Please donate now as the needs are both deep and urgent. And please know, your support is immensely appreciated 🙏

The De-ICE Hanscom Coalition’s team of Habeas Flight Verifiers has documented 114 ICE flights from Hanscom Field since October 7, 2025. By counting the SUVs, vans, and buses used to transport detainees, they estimate that between 2,221 and 4,310 New England residents have passed through Hanscom Field on these flights.

Many of these people have no criminal record and have had no bond hearing or access to legal counsel. Hanscom Field is owned and operated by Massport. The coalition is asking Massport to install a publicly viewable webcam system so that lawyers can identify their clients and families can locate their loved ones.

A similar system has monitored ICE flights at King County Airport in Seattle since 2023, providing a strong precedent for this request. We urge you to write postcards to Governor Healey and the Massport board demanding webcams for ICE flights at Hanscom.

We are asking each person to write 8 postcards, one to each member of the Massport board. You are welcome to download and print the postcard design, addresses, and scripts for your next group meeting or stop by our Friday standout to purchase packets. Cards are $5 per packet, each containing stamps, short scripts, and address labels for 6 or 8 cards.

Questions? hanscomicestandout@gmail.com

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Script Ideas

To Massport Board Members

To Governor Healey

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Address Labels to print for the 8 Massportboard members

(*Note* Each address is here multiple times. It’s also fine to address cards by hand.)

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Postcard Front

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Postcard Back

ICE’s “Quiet Surge” has become deadly

On July 13, ICE shot and killed a man in Biddeford, ME. It was the second such shooting in a week.

No member of Congress has visited Burlington in over 3 months.

The time for oversight and accountability is now.

Click on the link above to send a letter to your senator and your rep. DEMAND that they take action. ICE”s deadly rogue activities have got to be stopped

Sponsored by

Immigrant justice means ensuring that all immigrants, regardless of status, are treated with dignity, protected by due process and human rights, and able to live without fear of discrimination, detention, or family separation. Communities are stronger, and benefit when everyone can live safely and with opportunity.

Massachusetts is increasingly affected by expanded ICE enforcement, including heightened activity across the state, renewed deportation flights from Hanscom and other regional airports, and the growth of immigration detention nationwide. Reports of overcrowding, inadequate medical care, poor sanitation, limited legal access, and the detention of vulnerable people at the Burlington ICE Field Office underscore the need for stronger congressional oversight.

The Indivisible Mass Coalition has developed a toolkit for calling on Members of Congress to coordinate oversight visits to the Burlington facility, thoroughly inspect conditions, and publicly report their findings. We want to ensure that oversight is persistent, credible, and difficult to evade, rather than limited to isolated or tightly managed visits, and that the public is made aware of the findings of oversight visits.

We are asking state pension fund officials to engage their investment managers and demand answers. Signature refused to service ICE flights at Boeing Field in 2019 — documented in sworn federal testimony — and faced no legal consequences. The company’s claim that it has no choice is contradicted by its own past conduct. Pension trustees have a fiduciary duty to ask hard questions when a portfolio holding carries material reputational and ESG risk.

What’s happening on the border is horrifying—and it’s happening here in Massachusetts too. Every week ICE arrests and detains more of our community members. 

The Beyond Bond & Legal Defense Fund (the Bond Fund) raises money for immigration bonds to free people in ICE prisons in Massachusetts and Rhode Island or elsewhere, but are coming to live in MA upon release.

Since 2018, our community has raised over $1.5 million, to bond out hundreds of people, and helped with legal fees for many others. As people continued to be detained across our area and the country, we can—and must—do more.

Bonds can range anywhere from $2,000 to more than $20,000 per person. Our Bond Fund works with families and other bond funds across the country to get our people out of ICE prisons. Together we will continue to free people from immigration prison, reunite families, and keep our communities together in the face of white supremacist and xenophobic state violence. 

The Bond Fund also supplements legal fees to help people get out of immigration prison and, from time to time, provides supplemental funds toward legal fees for representation of those freed from immigration prison in their asylum/relief proceedings.

Our Bond Fund envisions a day when we never pay another immigration bond because we have abolished ICE detention, ICE enforcement, prisons and jails and all people can migrate with freedom, safety and dignity.

Help Massachusetts families impacted by ICE enforcement today.

Operation Milkweed is the ultimate collection of mutual aid and direct support for Massachusetts families impacted by ICE enforcement since 2025. These fundraisers were created by the families themselves and their advocates. Donations are NOT tax-deductible, and we take no cut of any donations. Just as monarch butterflies use milkweed plants to deter predators and create safe conditions during migration, immigrant families need community support when facing ICE enforcement. Be the milkweed.

MIRA is the largest coalition in New England promoting the rights and integration of immigrants and refugees. With offices in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, we advance this mission through education and training, leadership development, institutional organizing, strategic communications, policy analysis and advocacy.

MIRA is a dynamic and multi‐ethnic coalition with 140+ organizational members, including grassroots community organizations; refugee resettlement agencies; providers of social, legal and health services, faith-based organizations and civil and human rights advocates. We organize and empower our members and allies, and together we mobilize immigrant communities to advocate for themselves, and amplify and support their voices. MIRA is a respected leader on immigrant issues at the state and national levels, and an authoritative source of information and policy analysis for policy-makers, advocates, immigrant communities and the media.

Your gift supports vital advocacy, organizing and capacity-building!