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Police and different regulation enforcement officers can request confidential or undercover license plates from the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Autos for his or her work automobiles. If one other officer searches the plate quantity in a database, such because the RMV system or the Division of Prison Justice Info System, no proprietor seems.
However the Trump administration says the Massachusetts RMV is not going to situation confidential plates to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s automobiles, GBH’s Sarah Betancourt completely studies. Jacqueline Manning, a spokesperson for Gov. Maura Healey, mentioned that’s as a result of ICE isn’t a felony regulation enforcement company.
“Any federal, state or native company participating in respectable felony regulation enforcement work can obtain a confidential plate. Everyone knows that’s not what ICE is doing,” Manning instructed Betancourt.
Assistant U.S. Legal professional Normal Brett Shumate referred to as the transfer “discriminatory coverage” that’s “not solely deeply harmful as a matter of public security, but in addition blatantly illegal as a matter of constitutional regulation.” The RMV will situation registrations and license plates to ICE’s father or mother company, the Division of Homeland Safety, however solely after confirming the automobiles might be used for felony investigations, not civil immigration enforcement. You may learn Betancourt’s full story right here.
4 Issues to Know
1. Massachusetts misplaced about 14,600 college students between the autumn of 2024 and October 2025, and 46% have been in English language learner applications, in response to a research by the Massachusetts Price range and Coverage Middle. Massachusetts faculties don’t gather information on whether or not college students are immigrants or from immigrant households, however English learner information can act as a proxy, mentioned Anthony Clough, a Okay-12 and better schooling analyst at MassBudget.
In Chelsea, college officers mentioned they’ve seen households depart the nation or transfer to states the place they really feel safer from ICE brokers. “Throughout these surges like Operation Patriot and Operation Patriot 2.0, our entire neighborhood knew that ICE was simply hanging round on our avenue corners,” mentioned Sarah Neville, a member of the Chelsea Faculty Committee. “There was a time final October the place ICE was truly hanging out within the parking numerous our elementary college all day,” she mentioned, including that it has occurred much less in latest months.
2. As Nantucket and Martha’s Winery think about charging a price on residence gross sales to fund inexpensive housing, a research by the UMass Donahue Institute discovered the same price on Lengthy Island did not hurt the real estate market.
“We didn’t actually see an impression on both quantity or costs while you in contrast it to neighboring communities [on] Lengthy Island,” lead creator Kerry Spitzer mentioned.
3. A state incapacity board fined the Boston Housing Authority $363,000 for elevator outages at a South Finish housing complicated. Boston will seemingly pay just one% — $3,630. Board members mentioned a better advantageous may take away cash the town wants to truly repair the elevators, in response to advocates on the listening to.
The outages left seniors and residents with disabilities on the Ruth Barkley Residences primarily trapped — as soon as for 2 weeks and once more over the Thanksgiving vacation. “It’s an actual discovering, nevertheless it’s additionally a symbolic victory,” mentioned Daybreak Oates, a incapacity advocate and founding father of the nonprofit PlayBrigade.
4. Saint Michael’s School in Colchester, Vermont is making an attempt a brand new option to appeal to college students: an emergency companies main for future firefighters or EMTs. Enrollment on the college is down almost half over the previous 10 years, and directors hope the main focus will appeal to college students who would possibly in any other case select bigger faculties or skip school.
The school can also be consolidating applications and providing tuition similar to in-state charges to draw college students. “The overwhelming majority of our college students who we admit and don’t matriculate right here go to giant flagship faculties,” mentioned Saint Michael’s president Richard Plumb. “Effective. We’ll cost the identical tuition.”
Malden’s distinctive mixture of eating places and gaming grew from its immigrant inhabitants
By Meghan Smith, senior digital producer, GBH Information
Once we launched our Gateway Cities venture, we have been excited by how many individuals wished to share pleasure of their cities and what makes them particular. When somebody commented on our video about Malden, we have been intrigued: “Malden has blown up in Asian eateries prior to now decade and a half. How did that occur and what brought on this?”
I teamed up with our video crew to search out out, and found a narrative about immigration taking part in out throughout many Gateway Cities. As Asian immigrants have been priced out of Boston’s Chinatown, they moved south to Quincy and north to Malden, bringing eating places with them. Now, a stroll round downtown Malden permits you to “style the world,” with Chinese language, Thai, Vietnamese, Korean and Arabic delicacies.
Whereas we hung out in Malden, we found one thing else: the town is residence to the one-of-a-kind Malden Gaming District, with companies the place you possibly can play video video games, rock climb and sing karaoke. We additionally realized that Malden is residence to one of many greatest hubs of Pokémon Go in New England: gamers meet as much as stroll round downtown collectively and play a number of occasions every week.
A lot of the expansion in gaming is because of metropolis assist — Mayor Gary Christenson, who was born and raised in Malden, is an avid gamer and infrequently joins the Pokémon Go meetups. He’s additionally studying Mandarin to interact with residents. Malden is now some of the various cities within the state – full of excellent meals and enjoyable. We’re excited to inform extra tales about how Gateway Cities are evolving.
You can watch our full video tour here.
Need us to return to your Gateway Metropolis subsequent? Attain out to us at equityandjustice@wgbh.org orfill out this questionnaire.
Extra on Gateway Cities:
–Artists discover inexpensive housing in Fitchburg amid metropolis effort to welcome creatives
–‘The chance is right here’: Contained in the state effort that’s remodeling Gateway Cities
–Gateway to prosperity: What’s subsequent for Massachusetts’ Gateway Cities?