Editor's Note: Smith College students in a Journalism in the Field course were asked to practice reporting in the community. Students then worked with their professor Dusty Christensen and NEPM to to edit and promote the pieces. This is Madison's piece. Read the others here.
Strolling downtown Northampton, the signs are hard to miss. Past the boba shops and cafes, each window seems to wear a sign declaring “Welcome Immigrants” of one variation or another. Some are rainbow, others have the colors of the Palestinian flag. Some contain messages against Immigration and Customs Enforcement, others say “No Kings.”
The message is apparent: immigrants are welcome in Northampton.
In 2014, Mayor David Narkewicz made this clear with an executive order distinguishing Northampton as a “sanctuary city.” The order, which city officials reaffirmed after both of President Donald Trump’s election victories, declared that Northampton’s police force would not “honor and enforce any detainer request from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that is non-criminal.” The City Council then unanimously endorsed the executive order, declaring that Northampton “has been, and continues to be enriched by the contributions of community members who have traveled from all points of the globe to make their homes here.”
Twelve years later, with the Trump administration using more intense tactics against the immigrant community, the declaration, and the action behind it, remains relevant. Other liberal communities across the state, including Amherst and Boston, have also declared themselves sanctuary communities — efforts they say are meant to protect their immigrant neighbors.
“There's not a lot a small city can do when the federal government is enacting such policies. But it can be a witness and say, ‘This is not our values,’” explained newly elected Northampton City Councilor Laurie Loisel.
While she wasn’t a part of the initial push for the sanctuary designation, Loisel played an integral part in the sanctuary movement locally. She was one of the congregant leaders at the Unitarian Society of Northampton and Florence when a local immigrant, facing possible deportation, took sanctuary in the church in 2018, living there amid Trump’s crackdown on immigrants during his first term in office.
But not everyone agrees on the efficacy of sanctuary designations. During a new digital age, there are many challenges in cities declaring themselves sanctuaries, including surveillance technology that can help ICE locate and arrest immigrants regardless of local support. That includes basic information sharing that happens when local police arrest somebody and send their fingerprints to the federal government — a practice started under President Barack Obama’s administration. But it also includes software that local police, including the Northampton Police Department, use, according to documents obtained through a public records request.
In response, some have questioned whether such policies are effective and whether they have worked to strengthen local grassroots organizing.
“There's not a lot a small city can do when the federal government is enacting such policies. But it can be a witness and say, ‘This is not our values,." — Northampton City Councilor Laurie Loisel
Sanctuary policies haven't prevented ICE from making arrests in Northampton or Amherst, where immigration agents arrested two people last May. What’s more, also last May, the Trump administration published a list of places it deemed sanctuary cities, including Northampton, Amherst, Holyoke and Springfield. The federal government later removed the list after pushback over inaccuracies in it. But Trump still has sanctuary cities in his crosshairs, declaring in January that he intended to withhold federal funding from them — something he had also threatened during his first term in 2017.
All of that has caused controversy in Holyoke, which, according to elected officials, is not a sanctuary city.
After being included on Trump’s list of sanctuary cities at risk of losing federal funding, City Councilors Kevin Jourdain and Linda Vacon — both prominent Republicans in the city — proposed a resolution that would have reaffirmed Holyoke's status as a non-sanctuary city. The resolution, which ultimately failed to pass, would have been sent to the Department of Homeland Security, the region’s federal delegation and the White House.
According to Census data, Holyoke is over 50% Hispanic or Latino. In comparison, only 9% of the Northampton population identifies as Hispanic or Latino.
“Writing any sort of letter to the Department of Homeland Security which asks how we can comply with their unconstitutional actions, actively endangers well over 60% of our population,” city resident Claire McGale said during a City Council meeting. “No, we're not a sanctuary city, but we stand by our neighbors.”
“I urge you do not become complicit in what I think is a reign of terror that we’re experiencing now in this country,” said Orlando Isaza, a longtime advocate for the Latino community in Holyoke.
Other municipalities have also said they’re not sanctuary cities, but have passed ordinances that seek to limit how local police interact with ICE. Springfield, for example, passed a “welcoming community trust ordinance” in 2018, which among other things prohibits city officials from asking questions about people’s immigration status unless required by law. The ordinance also prevents police from honoring civil immigration detainer requests from ICE or notifying the federal agency about the pending release of somebody in its custody. The ordinance, however, avoids the word “sanctuary.”
Gov. Maura Healey has also said that Massachusetts is not a sanctuary state, though there have been recent efforts on Beacon Hill to pass legislation that would prohibit law enforcement from asking about immigration status. One bill, the PROTECT Act, would “create a statewide standard for governing interactions between state and local systems and federal immigration enforcement,” according to a recent press release from the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
The bill passed in the House on March 25, and the state Senate will soon take it up. Last month, the Northampton City Council passed a non-binding resolution calling on state lawmakers to pass the bill, and for the local district attorney to prosecute any federal agents who commit crimes in the region.
State Rep. Lindsey Sabadosa, D-Northampton, was among the over 50 cosponsors of the bill. She explained that the PROTECT Act was born out of legislative efforts to end collaboration between the Department of Corrections in Massachusetts and ICE under what’s known as the 287(g) program. Massachusetts is the only state where the majority of people voted against Trump in 2024, and where a Democrat is governor, that has a state agency with a 287(g) agreement, according to ICE data.
As part of drafting the PROTECT Act, the Black and Latino Legislative Caucus met with people within ICE detention centers to understand what they wanted to see in the bill. Among other provisions, the bill would ensure that detained immigrants have their rights read in their native language and that their lawyers be notified if they were transferred.
Sabadosa said she recognizes that the legislation can’t stop data sharing with ICE completely — for example, when someone is arrested and their fingerprint is shared with the federal government.
“We can stop some data sharing, if there were no criminal charges. So it does really draw that distinction,” she said.
Sabadosa acknowledged that some felt the bill did not go far enough because it wouldn’t end the state’s 287(g) agreement. On April 28, immigrant-rights advocates rallied at the State House to call on the Senate to strengthen the bill. But Sabadosa believes that after working with the immigrant community to craft the legislation, the bill provides meaningful protections.
The day the PROTECT Act passed in the House, Sabadosa said that the State House gallery was filled with people from the immigrant community. Families and friends embraced among the chanting and cheering, she recalled.
“There are moments in the State House where we pass legislation and it's just overwhelmingly emotional, and this was one of those moments,” she said.
Origins of the sanctuary movement
The sanctuary movement in western Massachusetts predates any city's declaration to be, or not to be, a sanctuary city.
“The original sanctuary movement really came out of the 1980s when there was a large-scale movement of Central Americans coming to the United States,” explained Mount Holyoke professor David Hernández, who studies the detention of immigrants in the United States. “They weren't getting asylum, so they stopped asking for it, and they just usually remained undocumented, and the sanctuary movement was just a … collective movement to protect them.”
Traveling from Guatemala, brothers Joaquin and Pedro Vasquez found themselves taking sanctuary in Northampton in the late 1980s, after having arrived in Los Angeles in 1985. Fearing the low number of people from Guatemala gaining asylum in the United States, the brothers decided to live a life under the radar in the Connecticut River Valley. Pedro married an American woman and had children.
The family lived in a small apartment where the smell of traditional Guatemalan food would waft the air, according to press reports at the time. The brothers received support from various congregations in the region including Grace Episcopal Church in Amherst, the Unitarian Society in Northampton and Amherst, New Jewish Agenda in Northampton and Amherst, and First Congregational Church of Amherst.
Pedro had dreamt of a life where he could support his family on his own, according to reporting in the Daily Hampshire Gazette. The pressure of taking charity from churches began to weigh on him. He dreamt of a future where his eldest daughter attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His American dream included a future in which his undocumented status would not impede his will to support the people that mattered the most to him.
“I planned so the help would be less and less so we could become self-sufficient. And we’re starting to,” Pedro told the Gazette in July 1989.
Nearly 30 years after the coverage of the Vasquez brothers’ arrival in the region, two more immigrants took refuge in local churches — in Amherst’s First Congregational Church and in the Unitarian Society of Northampton and Florence.
A long time member of the Unitarian Society of Northampton and Florence, Loisel felt shellshocked after the first election of Donald Trump. Her congregation began attending meetings with interfaith groups around Northampton. At the time, religious institutions from around the community had united in an effort to protect those most vulnerable to the Trump administration’s policies. Working with the Pioneer Valley Workers Center, the congregation began to consider the possibility of becoming a sanctuary.
“Some people left the church, but we voted with a pretty strong majority to become a sanctuary congregation,” Loisel explained. For the Unitarian Society, becoming a sanctuary congregation meant being willing to allow someone to live in their building to avoid deportation. And that’s exactly what they did.
“It was a way bigger endeavor than we anticipated, but we figured, you can't predict what's gonna come your way. And it seemed like the right thing to do,” Loisel said.
Northampton: "A safe city for immigrants"
In November 2024, the mood in the Northampton City Council chambers was tense. Trump had just been reelected, and city leaders were discussing how to respond. That included reaffirming Northampton’s status as a sanctuary city.
Javier Luengo-Garrido, a longtime local immigrant-rights advocate and organizing strategist with the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, described the moment as “dire times.” He stressed the importance of Northampton making it clear that it is a safe city for immigrants — a place where they could come forward as victims of crime, for example, without fear of putting themselves at risk of deportation. He praised the city’s past efforts to create sanctuary policies, which he had helped lead.
“Making that kind of commitment, as somebody who works every day with undocumented folks, people felt seen, people felt valued and they felt part of the community,” he said. “And I think the opportunity we have right now in our hands is to keep showing that people belong here, they are our neighbors, they are our immigrant children going to our schools, their parents working in our city.”
The city, he added, had an opportunity to show: “We are going to keep fighting and keeping our community members here where they belong.”
Western Massachusetts has begun to see a rise of grassroots organizing for immigrants in the region in the wake of Trump’s reelection. Founded in 2025, for example, the LUCE Immigrant Justice Network of Massachusetts describes itself as “a coalition of immigrant-led, grassroots organizations who build people power for everyone across Massachusetts.” There are 12 groups within their coalition, including the local Pioneer Valley Workers Center and Neighbor 2 Neighbor Massachusetts.
In April of 2025, LUCE launched the LUCE Defense Hotline for community members to call if they suspect ICE, DHS or other federal agents within the area. The network also hosts trainings and works to mobilize resources to protect the immigrant community across the state.
“The LUCE Network organizes through grassroots action, information sharing, and mutual aid to
keep all communities safe,” explained a press release from the organization released in April 2025.
“It’s a huge fear that we’re living with,” one undocumented farmworker from El Salvador told the news outlet The Shoestring last year amid a surge in ICE arrests across the region. She told the news outlet she knew many people who have had a family member detained. “People are afraid to go to the store, to go wash their clothes.”
School leaders, too, have said that in cities with larger immigrant populations, school enrollment numbers have dropped amid fears of family separation. That includes Chicopee and Pittsfield.
Organizations like the Pioneer Valley Workers Center and the ACLU have also held trainings across the state, informing immigrants of their rights and helping them prepare necessary documents in case they are separated from their family members.
For some organizations within the Connecticut River Valley, the sanctuary label does hold weight. The Center for New Americans, for example, has locations in Northampton, Amherst, Springfield and Greenfield. The organization helps to integrate immigrants into new communities by offering classes and legal services that open doors to jobs, educational opportunities and community resources.
Laurie Millman, the executive director of the organization, said Northampton’s designation as a sanctuary city is a matter of public safety.
“We serve immigrants where they are in Western Mass but we breathe more easily in cities where we know that immigrants are protected,” she explained in an email. While Millman said that she believes Northampton is a nicer environment to work in, she does hope to see the public safety net restored, specifically support systems like SNAP benefits and health insurance that would help immigrants in their daily lives.
Students on college campuses are organizing, too.
For Smith College first-year Erika Estrada-Hernandez, it’s personal. Erika is a first-generation student studying Latin American studies and economics. Growing up in Rio Grande Valley, Texas, Estrada-Hernandez was raised in a binational community where many of her friends and family were immigrants. While studying over 2,000 miles away, she is aware of the large ICE and border patrol presence in her hometown on the Texas border.
“It wouldn't sit right that I'm not doing something for my community,” Estrada-Hernandez explained.
Estrada-Hernandez became the volunteer chair for the Latin American Student Organization on campus. In this role, she hopes to push for more workshops and resources for undocumented students on campus. While not undocumented herself, she feels that undocumented students on campus have been forced to stay “low key.”
“We could be a part of something that could help them,” Estrada-Hernandez said. She mentioned how white the city of Northampton is — 81% of the city, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. She said that often race impacts activism.
“And I think the opportunity we have right now in our hands is to keep showing that people belong here, they are our neighbors, they are our immigrant children going to our schools, their parents working in our city.” — Javier Luengo-Garrido, ACLU of Massachusetts
Student advocacy has a long history within the sanctuary movement in western Massachusetts. After the first election of Donald Trump, UMass Amherst students advocated for the university to be considered a sanctuary campus, though university officials resisted those calls.
"Declaring UMass Amherst a 'sanctuary campus' is not in the best interests of the university community because the term has no legal definition and would not provide any additional legal protection for students, faculty and staff,” a school spokesperson said at the time, according to reporting by The Republican.
Similarly, the Undocumented Student Organization of Smith College hopes to advocate for inclusive policies and push to establish Smith as an effective sanctuary.
Students and unions were also a large part of the sanctuary movement in the 1980s, explained Diana Sierra Becerra, an assistant professor of history at UMass Amherst.
“There's aspects of the earlier wave of sanctuary movements in the ’80s that I think we need to revive. Solidarity politics and anti-imperialist politics is something that was in some ways much stronger then,” explained Becerra.
Becerra herself worked with the Pioneer Valley Workers Center when the organization provided support to one of the undocumented immigrants who took sanctuary in a local church during Trump’s first term in office.
“We see how it impacts all of us, obviously, and undocumented people are among the most vulnerable,” Becerra said.
When asked about the label “sanctuary city,” Becerra said she believes it’s a tool and it depends on whose hand it’s in.
“It takes an organized movement to be able to give that policy any teeth,” she said.
Becerra said that often within immigrant rights movements, especially under the nonprofit model, immigrants are treated as victims. Instead, she said, the focus should be on immigrants organizing as workers.
“For folks who are not undocumented, or not immigrants, try to push yourself to understand how attacks against immigrants are attacks against the entire working class because it's a way to divide the working class and to push down wages for all people.”
Are sanctuary cities symbolic?
There’s no denying that western Massachusetts has a strong connection to the sanctuary movement. Some, however, have questioned whether these ties are simply symbolic due to the increasing presence of surveillance technologies and sweeping data-collection efforts that can assist federal immigration agents.
The Northampton Police Department, has contracts with both Motorola Solutions and Thomson Reuters, copies of which NEPM obtained via a public records request. Both of those companies also have contracts with ICE.
“You hereby grant us a non-exclusive license and right to use, copy, store, host, display, transmit and process your data solely as necessary for Thomson Reuters, our employees and contractors to provide our Services under the Agreement and in accordance with applicable law,” reads the Thomson Reuters’ general terms and conditions.
The Northampton Police Department contracts Thomson Reuters for its CLEAR software, which “quickly [identifies] victims and persons of interest through current and historical content,” according to the Thomson Reuters website.
Earlier this year, a Thomson Reuters employee filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the company, alleging that she was fired after raising concerns about the company providing ICE with data through CLEAR. And an investigation by the technology news outlet 404 Media alleged that data from Thomson Reuters' CLEAR was being used to power tools that federal immigration agents were using to conduct enforcement actions: systems built by the companies Palantir and Motorola.
In a statement late last month, Thomson Reuters said Palantir is not a CLEAR customer and that the software does not contain information about citizenship or immigration status.
“Thomson Reuters remains focused on supporting lawful investigations that make a positive impact on communities through our people, products, and partnerships, while maintaining strong safeguards around responsible data use,” the statement said.
As for Motorola solutions, the Northampton Police Department uses their WatchGuard software which acts as an in-car video service for law enforcement. The contract between city police and WatchGuard, obtained via public records requests, reveals the police department grants WatchGuard and its subcontractors a right to use the data collected using WatchGuard software. While ICE does not subcontract WatchGuard, the agency does have a contract with its parent company Motorola Solutions.
Claire Lobdell, a librarian at Greenfield Community College and a member of the Library Freedom Project who holds a background in privacy and anti-surveillance, explained what these technologies mean for Northampton’s sanctuary status.
“It all kind of leads back to the surveillance state,” Lobdell explained. While the policies of the municipal government can reflect Northampton’s sanctuary status, cameras and technology used by private businesses or on private property can still be used by federal agencies.
Lobdell also noted that much of the technology surrounding the area is outside the municipality's control.
“Even if you say you're a sanctuary city, if you want to be able to access certain systems, [...] you have to be in these information sharing networks,” said Lobdell, citing the recent Superbowl ad released by the doorbell camera company Ring, which shows how all their products can be used by members to find lost pets. Lobdell explained that “the Ring network could be used to identify folks who are undocumented.”
Other technologies that western Massachusetts police departments use, such as license-plate readers made by the company Flock, have also drawn scrutiny from privacy advocates. They have pointed to instances of other law-enforcement agencies making immigration-related searches on ICE’s behalf on Flock’s nationwide network of license-plate readers — including local devices in western Massachusetts.
When asked to comment about the surveillance technology in Northampton, Alan Wolf, chief of staff for Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra, pointed to the November 2024 and February 2026 statements that Sciarra, Chief of Police Cartledge, and Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner O'Leary made outlining their “unwavering commitment to being a welcoming, inclusive, and equitable community.”
“These statements clearly reflect the City’s position, and the City has no additional comment at this time,” Wolf said via email.
Cartledge did not respond to an email requesting comment.
Rallies of support
On the streets of Northampton, a marching band played Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family” as the Pioneer Valley rallied for “No Kings Day” this March. People filled the streets spanning for what felt like miles, holding colorful signs against authoritarianism. An elderly woman with a cane held one aloft that said “Immigrants Are What Make America Great” as the drums pulsed around her.
From across the street, people of all ages began to cheer: “Hey hey, no fear, immigrants are welcome here!” A giant puppet of a monarch butterfly flew above the crowd — a symbol of the beauty of migration. A mother passed by, her young daughter trailing behind her holding a sign reading “Families belong Together.”
