Here are some thoughts to consider as the draft dodger who some of your cousins decided should be commander-in-chief deploys US Marines into the streets of Los Angeles and trades insults with his star-crossed, ex-co-president from South Africa, Elon Musk.
What’s happening in Los Angeles this week could very well be a precursor to armed federal aggression nationally— and particularly in targeted cities like Boston, which Trump and his deputized bullyboys regard as “disloyal.”
If she hasn’t already, our governor should be taking steps to proactively counter the illegal “federalization” of Massachusetts guardsmen and take all legal measures at her disposal to gird for and resist what could become a protracted campaign aimed at disrupting our economy, sowing chaos in our community, and stripping trusted institutions of funding, and—potentially— deploying troops to harass and intimidate our leaders, citizens, and local law enforcement.
On Tuesday, our mayor — surrounded by other state and city elected officials— announced her administration’s latest steps to check the Trump regime’s immigration sweeps by what Wu has called “secret police tactics” that have intensified in recent weeks in and around the city.
They include a new executive order that directs city officials to make formal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests of Homeland Security officials “to find out who they are detaining and arresting and on what grounds,” Wu said.
In a press conference, Wu said her order had been prompted by the lack of transparency from federal authorities.
“We’ve asked for information,” the mayor said. “There have been big numbers thrown out there about a quota for detentions and mass deportation. We don’t know if those numbers are real, we don’t know who they are counting,” she said.
City lawyers, at Wu’s direction, have also joined lawsuits that oppose the regime’s assault on humanitarian parole programs for Haitians and Venezuelans and its aim to withdraw birthright citizenship for millions of American-born children.
And, Wu announced, the city won a “major victory” last week when a federal judge ordered that $48 million in housing-related funds already awarded to Boston be delivered as promised.
“The coordinated attacks that we’re seeing—on our Constitutional freedoms, on due process, on research, science, and education, and our institutions — especially here in Boston— are all designed to destroy our sense of trust and connection,” Wu said. “But this administration fundamentally does not understand Boston.”
As Trump’s unwarranted provocation in Los Angeles demonstrates, we’ll need strong leadership from local and state officials to marshal and coordinate resources.
It’s time for our governor and the Legislature to gather in an emergency session to prepare for worsening relations at the federal level and to coordinate and stand-up regional plans with like-minded, similarly targeted states.
“What Trump is trying to do in California is wrong. It is authoritarianism on steroids,” US Sen. Ed Markey said in remarks before the influential business lobby The New England Council on Monday. “We have to, here in Massachusetts, make sure that he understands that we are not going to tolerate having the authority of Gov. Healey or Mayor Wu, or any of our local officials, undermined by his authoritarian techniques to nationalize the National Guard or any other national military body.”
Cooler heads may prevail, and we pray that they do. But if the president and his cabinet persist in menacing duly elected officials with arrest and commandeer state apparatus and forces to subdue dissent and effect martial law, our state and region must counter through all legal means at our disposal.
Bill Forry is the co-publisher and executive editor of The Reporter.
