By Dakota Antelman — [email protected]
President Donald Trump’s vows of an immigration crackdown are prompting Concord leaders to review what they would do if federal agents come knocking.
“Concord is not a sanctuary city,” Town Manager Kerry Lafleur told the Select Board on January 27. “But we did adopt that ‘Welcoming Community’ petition back in 2017.”
Lafleur referenced a Town Meeting article that proposed policies to protect immigrants’ rights. She said officials are following current events but that “we haven’t had any change in practice.”
Lafleur said town staff recently met with legal counsel. Concord police Capt. Brian Goldman said the department has discussed the matter internally.
Outside municipal government, Sigmund Roos and Ruthy Bennett, who helped draft the 2017 Town Meeting article, are themselves watching Washington, D.C. — and reflecting on their effort in a new context.
Roos said he and Bennett modeled their article’s wording on documents from sanctuary cities. In interviews, both said they viewed the measure as a proposed sanctuary policy for Concord.
However, Roos acknowledged the article didn’t include those specific words. And Lafleur said the Select Board never formally adopted the article’s recommendations.
The town’s position, Lafleur said, is that “neither Concord’s current informal practice nor the language from the 2017 Town Meeting resolution interfere with federal law or federal law enforcement operations.”
2017 vote
Shortly after his second inauguration, Trump issued a battery of executive orders on immigration. The orders coincided with threats toward so-called sanctuary cities.
Though there is no legal definition, sanctuary policies often limit local officials’ cooperation with federal authorities on matters involving immigration law.
Concord’s 2017 article, “Concord a Welcoming Community,” passed by majority vote. Lafleur said the Select Board considered the recommendations but stopped short of adopting new policies or procedures.
“We think basically [this was] because the informal policy of the Concord Police Department really matched what was contained in that petition,” she said.
Bennett said she wished the Select Board had codified Welcoming Community policies and said her Jewish identity and the persecution of Jewish people throughout history factor into her perspective.
“If they’re not coming for my family now,” she said, “they’ll come for me at some point.”
Sanctuary title
Several news outlets have included Concord on lists of sanctuary cities in recent years.
“I think it’s been misstated,” Goldman told The Concord Bridge. “What was put forward in 2017 was a ‘Welcoming Community.’ So it’s a little different mix of words.”
Roos emphasized that Welcoming Community policies would have covered all town departments — not just the police.
Almost a decade later, he also disavowed the “sanctuary” moniker, though for different reasons from those of town officials.
“There’s no reason to call a sanctuary city a ‘sanctuary city’ if the [right wing] has determined what the meaning of that should be,” he said.
Contrary to portrayals of sanctuary cities as “harboring dangerous people,” Roos said, “all it is is establishing rules and regulations that are merely consistent with what the law already says.”
Police procedures
Under current procedures, Goldman said officers would stay neutral in interactions with federal immigration agents.
In a “worst-case scenario,” the department might be around the perimeter of a raid in a “peacekeeping role,” he said. “We would not support or assist them in their mission.”
Goldman said he does not remember such an immigration operation in Concord. If one happened, he said, police would not share information without a court order compelling them to do so.
Goldman said police here don’t ask people about their immigration status as part of their duties. He also said the department wants community members to feel comfortable.
“You may have someone here illegally that has information about a serious crime,” Goldman said. “We want them to know that they can come talk to us without fear of repercussions.”
State shelter
Concord’s state-run emergency shelter on Elm Street opened in 2023 and has housed a variety of people in need, including recently arrived migrants.
A spokesperson for the state Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities did not respond to questions about whether the state was preparing for possible raids at shelters.
In a January 27 letter to state Rep. Michlewitz (D-Boston), though, EOHLC secretary Ed Agustus and Executive Office for Administration and Finance secretary Matthew Gorzkowicz said they were working with the state attorney general to review Trump’s executive orders for “potential impacts” on the shelter system.
More policy needed?
Concord Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee chair Rose Cratsley said many people are scared, uncertain, upset, and frustrated about shifting immigration policies.
Though the town’s informal practices “may provide temporary relief,” Cratsley said Concord should go further to “ensure accountability and protection for immigrant communities.”
She said sanctuary policies or “clear directives to local authorities regarding their potential role in terms of non-cooperation with federal immigration enforcement” would “help establish trust and transparency.”
Bennett worries that informal policies might not be enough.
“What does a person do when their job or their family is threatened?” she asked. “… It’s a serious problem to follow [informal policies] if your job is on the line.”
That said, she wondered if there’s “more harm in putting ourselves on the map” by formalizing sanctuary-style policies and risking drawing the federal government’s ire.
In 2017, Roos said, he thought Concord needed to do more to codify its policies.
Given the president’s focus on immigration right now, he said, “maybe we don’t want to.”
Whether Concord enacts formal policies or not, Bennett said the community has a major question to answer.
“Who are we?” she said. “We really need to decide that now.”
