ANALYSIS
From the very beginning of Trump’s second term, his administration has had its eye on Massachusetts. The Bay State and its liberal-leaning politics appeared to be a perfect foil for their agenda, whether on higher education, the pharmaceutical industry, or immigration enforcement.
The bluster began only weeks into the administration. In February, Trump’s “border czar,” former Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director Tom Homan, declared that unless Boston reversed a local law limiting police cooperation with federal immigration officials, “I’m coming to Boston; I’m bringing hell with me.”
Homan later claimed he had quietly slipped into the city in March, though he only announced the trip afterward. Unsurprisingly, no one had noticed.
Since then,
lead over her better-funded challenger, and Trump’s Justice Department just handed her another talking point.Local Republicans, if they were thinking strategically, might be the ones most eager for Trump to stay away. Every national spotlight the administration shines on Boston only strengthens Democrats’ hand statewide. It reminds Massachusetts voters that the national GOP is hostile to their city’s values, even as Republicans here try to carve out a more moderate identity.
Of course, the administration could escalate further. Trump has threatened before to deploy National Guard troops to cities with sanctuary laws. He raised the idea for Boston and Chicago. But that move is already less threatening than it was months ago. When he sent troops into Los Angeles during unrest, courts ruled many aspects of the deployment illegal. Trying to repeat that experiment in Boston would invite an immediate legal battle, and likely another political gift to Democrats.
So instead, we’re left with this lawsuit. It is noisy but not substantive, full of rhetoric but light on plausible legal grounding. It may produce a few days of headlines on Fox News, but in terms of actual change on the ground, it is unlikely to alter Boston’s immigration enforcement practices or shake the city’s political resolve.
Advertisement
Trump’s border czar once promised hell. What Boston got instead was a flimsy lawsuit that reads more like campaign literature than governing.
And in Massachusetts politics, that may be the lamest move of all.
James Pindell is a Globe political reporter who reports and analyzes American politics, especially in New England.