Baker won’t back statewide sanctuary for illegals

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Baker won’t back statewide sanctuary for illegals
Thursday, August 6, 2015
Matt Stout

Gov. Charlie Baker today batted down a proposal to offer state-wide sanctuary protections to illegal immigrants, saying that option should be left to cities and towns.

“We have a perfect example of why I don’t think we should have statewide policy on this,” Baker said at an unrelated State House press conference, pointing to a pledge by Lawrence Mayor Dan Rivera to not seek sanctuary status in his immigrant-heavy city and, conversely, moves by Mayor Joe Curtatone of Somerville, one of six Bay State sanctuary communities.

“I’m a former local official, so my view on this stuff is local officials for the most part, I believe, are most accountable to the people in their communities and they should make the decisions with respect to what they want to do and how they want to handle this,” Baker said.

The Herald reported earlier this week that lawmakers were quietly pushing a bill to ban public agencies from giving or sharing information on illegal immigrants with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement unless forced to do so by a court or a federal order.