A chain-link cage, shoes and a tarp: The display on The First Church lawn dramatizes congregation members’ opposition to immigrant detention and the push to authorize driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants.
“We’ve been having conversations on immigrant injustice for the past two years. The message is people belong in their homes, not in cages,” said First Church Pastor Ian Holland.
The Congregational church joined a coalition fighting federal immigrant detention policies. The immigrant advocates’ licensing push has stalled in the state Legislature, said state Sen. Brendan Crighton, who sponsored the licensing proposal in the Senate.
“The coalition is very active. We are building support to get it over the finish line,” Crighton said on Tuesday.
Referred to by backers as the Work and Family Mobility Act, the licensing legislation would allow undocumented immigrants residing in Massachusetts to acquire standard, but not federal REAL ID-compliant, licenses, something state law currently bans them from doing.
The State House News Service reported supporters say at least 16 other states allow undocumented immigrants to acquire licenses.
Close to 200,000 undocumented immigrants live in Massachusetts, of which 41,000 to 78,000 would qualify and likely apply for licenses within three years of the bill’s implementation, according to an analysis from the left-leaning Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center.
Gov. Charlie Baker, who lives across Monument Avenue from First Church, opposes the measure, so legislative leaders would need to ensure they have a two-thirds majority ready to override a potential veto if a licensing bill reached his desk.
The governor said in February he thinks “the bar on this one’s pretty high,” flagging concerns with security and confirming identities.
Holland said The First Church display has sparked social media comments and prompted people walking by the church or nearby Town Hall to stop and study the display and the pro-immigrant signs affixed to it.
“We hope it’s provoking a response,” he said.
Last year, Holland participated in an 80-mile walk from Boston to Dover, N.H., where an immigrant detention center is located, and The First Church social justice committee has banded with groups representing other faiths and the Essex County Community Organization to advocate for the immigrant licensing bill.
“The current implementation of federal immigration law is immoral,” Holland said.