Massachusetts legislative panel hears testimony on landmark immigrant-protection bill

BOSTON — March 18, 2026 — Massachusetts Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security hears sweeping testimony on immigrant protections, motocross safety, and nuclear emergency planning. Co-chairs Senator John J. Cronin and Representative Daniel Cahill presided over a three-hour-plus session dominated by testimony on H5158, the Protect Act, which would ban 287G agreements between Massachusetts law enforcement and ICE, bar police from asking about immigration status, and restrict ICE access to courthouses and sensitive locations. Essex County Special Sheriff William Gerke testified that his county holds 125 active ICE detainers among a jail population of roughly 900, with 114 of those detainees in pretrial status on charges including fentanyl trafficking, rape, and homicide; he said the county proactively notifies ICE ahead of bail releases "as a courtesy." Members of the Black and Latino Legislative Caucus, including Representative Manny Cruz and Senator Liz Miranda, testified in support alongside unions representing more than 160,000 workers, three physician panels, and Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan, who described ICE courthouse arrests triggering dangerous scuffles inside courtrooms. On S2681, Colby's Law, the parents of 14-year-old Colby Lippincott, killed at a southeastern Massachusetts motocross track in June 2024, testified that a tree 30 feet from the track edge and absent hay bales — which cost $10 each — could have saved his life; the committee also heard nuclear preparedness advocates urge expansion of emergency planning zones from 10 to 50 miles around aging reactor sites.