BOSTON, Mass. (WGGB/WSHM) - Governor Maura Healey took action to shield Massachusetts residents from immigration and customs enforcement operations. On Thursday, she filed legislation designed to keep ICE agents out of courthouses, schools, hospitals, childcare facilities and places of worship.

The bill also stops other states from sending their national guard here to Massachusetts without the governor’s approval. State officials called it the most comprehensive effort in the country to protect sensitive locations from federal immigration enforcement.

The executive order stops Massachusetts from making any new deals with ICE unless there’s a real public safety reason to do it and bans ice from making arrests in non-public areas of state facilities and prevents the state from allowing ice to use state property as a staging ground for immigration enforcement operations.

The legislation also works to keep ICE agents completely out of courthouses, schools, hospitals, childcare facilities and places of worship.

“Hospitals, healthcare centers, doctors’ offices, are seeing people skip medical appointments, skip needed care, pregnant woman not going to the doctors, not taking their kids for pediatrician visits, going to the doctors when they are in need. Why? Because they are afraid of ICE. We have people who are afraid to visit their parents in the nursing home because of ICE. That’s just wrong, and we are going to stop that here in Massachusetts,” Governor Healey said.

The bill also gives parents a way to set up guardianship for their kids ahead of time, in case they’re detained or deported.

A vigil for Alex Pretti, a nurse who was shot by ICE this past weekend, was held Thursday night in Northampton.

Copyright 2026 Western Mass News (WGGB/WSHM). All rights reserved.