New England Public Radio

What Could Trump’s Pledge To Cut Funding Mean For ‘Sanctuary Cities’ In Western Mass.?

Republican President-elect Donald Trump made a lot of big promises on the campaign trail. One of them: cancel all federal funding to “sanctuary cities” on his first day in office.

That’s a sweeping promise, and it could have an impact in New England if it happens.

First, what is a sanctuary city? Los Angeles is one, so is New York, Chicago and the entire state of Connecticut. They’re also smaller communities, including Amherst, Holyoke and Northampton in western Massachusetts.

The term refers to communities that do not comply with some orders from federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). For example, if ICE asks local police to detain an immigrant suspected of living in the country illegally, those police are barred from doing it. There are exceptions if there’s a court order or criminal warrant for a person’s arrest.

Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz in his office.
Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz. (Henry Epp for NEPR)

“The position is really that local law enforcement, which doesn’t have the authority to enforce federal immigration laws…are opting not to do that,” said Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz.

Narkewicz issued an order creating his city’s policy in 2014. So did Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse.

“We want no one to be scared of talking to our officers and our city officials,” Morse said.

So that’s the idea behind so-called sanctuary cities. But could President-elect Trump actually end all federal funding to Northampton or Holyoke? Yes, according to John Hudak, a senior researcher at the Brookings Institution who studies presidential power. There are two ways this could happen, Hudak said. One is through executive action, but that would face legal challenges.

You can bet that if an executive order or other kind of executive action is issued on January 20th to that effect,” Hudak said, “states and localities will sue.”

Hudak said if that happens, federal funding would likely continue to flow while the measure is in court. The other option would be to push a law through the Republican-controlled Congress.

“It would probably say ‘any city that is violation of federal immigration law will not be entitled to federal discretionary funding,'” said Hudak.

According to Hudak, that approach could have a more immediate effect. So what would be at stake for sanctuary communities if a de-funding bill made it through?

Holyoke Mayor Alex B. Morse during editorial board meeting at The Republican in Springfield. October 15, 2015.
Holyoke Mayor Alex B. Morse. (Michael S. Gordon for The Republican)

“Lots of different areas,” according to Northampton’s David Narkewicz.”We receive Community Development Block Grant funding…which helps us support low- and moderate-income residents of our community.”

Holyoke and Amherst get those funds too. Plus, lots of transportation funding comes to cities and towns from the federal government through the state. Overall, though, federal money is a fairly small part of the budgets for these communities. Mayor Narkewicz said the threat of losing that funding changes nothing for him.

“In terms of the executive order that I issued, no, I don’t have any plans to reverse that because of what happened on November 8th,” he said.

In Holyoke, Mayor Morse is also standing by his policy. He also makes an important distinction about his city’s population, which is 48 percent Hispanic or Latino.

The majority of our Latino community is Puerto Rican and so they are not considered immigrants. They are United States citizens that don’t have to grapple with the same legal, bureaucratic situations that many of our immigrant communities do have to face,” said Morse.

Morse, who is white, said that speaks to a larger point.

“Immigrant or not, any talking point or policy about criminalizing or prosecuting or deporting immigrants in our community will target people that don’t look like me, and I think that’s incredibly dangerous rhetoric,” Morse said.

For now, local sanctuary city policies are here to stay. And for the record, both Mayors Morse and Narkewicz said, to their knowledge, there haven’t actually been any instances where local police have ignored federal immigration requests to detain people.

Northampton, Mass., Prepares for Refugee Resettlement

Residents of Northampton, Massachusetts, are laying the groundwork for the likely arrival of refugees in the next year.

Catholic Charities, based in Springfield, expects to resettle 51 refugees from Syria, Iraq, Burundi, and the Congo, and they’re focusing on Northampton, where the city council last year passed a resolution to welcome the groups.

In preparation, the charity’s leaders are speaking at house parties to give residents a sense of what refugees will need. At one event, Adam Abderelrahman of Darfur spoke of his experience in Springfield, where his family resettled three years ago.

“People don’t don’t understand that you are new here and don’t have the correct language to deal with people,”Abderelrahman said.  “They don’t have patience for you, they hurt you with words, kind of like ignorance, which is understandable but it’s very stressful at the same time.”

Catholic Charities says the first refugees could come as early as January.

Northampton Shop Owner Says The Customer Is Sometimes Wrong

Commentator Tess Poe has two decades of research and consulting experience. A few years ago, she launched a new venture: a retail company in Northampton, Massachusetts. Working behind the counter has been her hardest job to date.

Remember when super-model Tyra Banks had a daytime talk show? I might have been on January break, and I might have spent a few hours watching that three-ring circus.

On one episode Tyra put on a “fat suit” — not cool– and walked around Manhattan to experience what it’s like to not be treated like a supermodel.

My version of the “fat suit?” Working in retail — plate-glass window, open sign on the door, brick-and-mortar retail. As soon as you step behind a counter — even in a progressive college town — there will be people for whom the dynamic is pre-determined — a narrative they’ve bought into since they were old enough to drop dimes at a candy store. You: low-level shop girl. Them: always right.

When you walk downtown in a major city or along Main Street, there’s a pretty high chance you’ll enter a storefront and interact with a human being — one of 8 million Americans who work as salespeople or cashiers. That’s more than the population of Massachusetts.

In 2012, I left a research job and opened a do-it-yourself sewing studio. No more computers and conference calls. Now, I see people put on blinders and revert to a time when an employee was actually referred to as “the girl.” Like the stressed-out math professor, upset when I courteously explained to him that we only sold buttons, not snaps. “You’re a terrible person,” he said. “I don’t know how you’re in business.”

Then there was the person who tried to bully me into performing emergency jacket surgery — a service we do not offer — by saying, “What if I gave you $100?”

“Will you?” I said. “No,” I added. “We don’t do repairs.”

“Come on,” he needled. “You’re the boss. You make the rules.”

“Precisely,” I said. “No means no.”

It’s not completely his fault. Most of us were raised hearing phrases like “The customer is always right,” a concept promoted by sales legend Marshall Field in the late 1800’s.

But this is not your grandma’s retail — it’s 2016. It’s got to be okay for a customer to sometimes be wrong. We need to work towards equity and respect, even in a setting where there’s a person behind a counter, wearing an apron, and touching the money.

For now, though, I have a sign to flip and a cash drawer to count.

Tess Poe owns and operates Beehive Sewing Studio in Northampton, Massachusetts.

When Gas Leaks Hit Close To Home

Massachusetts House and Senate lawmakers continue to negotiate the details of major energy legislation. The final bill could require utility companies to repair more gas leaks. This issue hits close to home for our commentator, Michele Wick.

Four years ago, we stripped our nineteenth century Greek revival home to the bone and stuffed it with insulation. Solar panels and a ground-sourced heat pump were installed to keep us comfortable during every New England season. When the transformation was done, we had the gas line leading to our house removed, so imagine my surprise when I learned that methane was seeping from the street in front of my driveway.

IT was one of 91 leaks scattered across Northampton’s brittle cast iron and bare steel pipes. There are more than 20,000 methane leaks across the state of Massachusetts. That’s billions of cubic feet of fugitive methane. And its the gas customers who pay for that. Nearly $40 million a year.

The thought of natural gas going rogue is scary, so leaks are rated. Grade one leaks, deemed potentially explosive, pose an imminent threat to life, limb, and property and are scheduled for immediate repair. Grade threes are deemed “non-hazardous” and require no particular plan to fix them. Boston’s oldest Grade 3 leak, located near Fenway Park, turned 30 years old in 2015.

However, one person’s notion of safe is another person’s notion of reckless. Over the course of twenty years, methane traps at least 85 times more heat than carbon dioxide. That’s a lot of dangerous heat. It’s not just the explosive leaks we need to be worried about. It’s just as important to fix leaks that are hazardous to our climate.

It’s summer. Cardinals outside my window are winging across the cloud-free sky. All I really want to to do is contemplate the blueberries sitting on my kitchen counter. Pie or buckle? Whipped or ice cream?

I would love to ignore this stealth methane in our air, but that means ignoring the growing number of victims of climate change — like some Alaskan natives, whose homes are being ruined by rising seas and melting permafrost. But there are no funds to help them move. They’re stuck.

And there are my children — and yours — who are inheriting an already overheated landscape.

So I’ll go ahead and make that blueberry buckle, but I’ll also make waves. We need to keep the methane in the ground.

Michele Wick blogs about climate change for Psychology Today and teaches at Smith College. 

Needle Exchange Director Opens Up About Own Heroin Use Fourteen Years Ago

Fourteen years ago, Liz Whynott was a heroin addict. She entered detox in Greenfield, Mass., and didn’t leave like she had other times.

Whynott went on to treatment and has stayed drug-free. She now runs two needle exchange programs for Tapestry Health, in Holyoke and Northampton. She also counsels addicts when they come in.

Until this spring, almost none of her co-workers or the heroin addicts she meets knew about her past drug use. Whynott says the uncertainty over Holyoke’s needle exchange program — it could close this summer, after a judge recently ruled it should never have opened without approval from the City Council — is why she speaking up about her own heroin use.

I always thought I lived a double life. One side of me was a really good student, well liked by teachers, professionals. Then the other side of me was reckless.

Right after high school, there’s a group of friends that had gotten in to it, and the appeal of [heroin] somehow all of a sudden became strong. Although that drug was — always — the one [that] growing up…was kind of the line you don’t cross. 

I was also just having a hard time in life. Just stuff I didn’t know how to deal with. I’m not using it as an excuse. But I decided to try it one day and I loved it. I obsessed over that drug every moment, every day for well over two years. Even months to years after I finally was able to stop using it. It really filled lot of the emptiness I was feeling inside at the time. The sense of euphoria was like nothing else I ever felt. There’s a reason why a lot of people are addicted to that drug.

I think any form of addiction, including heroin addiction, is personal. You know, and I think about myself, I was so lucky to stop using drugs. I don’t know why I was able to stop then, and everyone around me, especially the ones I was using with, weren’t. And other people haven’t. And why I was lucky that I’m still alive sitting here, and many other people have died.

I’ve been thinking about telling my story for a long time. And I didn’t talk about it and I didn’t incorporate it because — through my work — I also am very aware of how drug users are looked at. I think that people are quick to throw people off to the side and say that they did it to themselves and what they get is what they deserve. I’ve become so tired and frustrated with people’s judgment of others. I think it’s the judgement that has a lot to do with why people are dying and why people are contracting diseases. Because judgement creates stigma and shame. And judgement will put different drug users into the shadows and onto the fringes of society. And it will make people not access the help that they need.

I know how horrible addiction is. How scary it is, lonely, painful for everybody, including family members. I know that the guidance and the help that I received from the needle exchange made it so that I didn’t get HIV, or hepatitis C. And I’m not dead.

Whynott’s story first appeared in the Daily Hampshire Gazette.

New England Public Radio’s Jill Kaufman produced our story.

Will Federal Directive on Transgender Students Impact Mass. and Conn. Schools?

The federal government sent a letter Friday to public schools across the country, laying out what they’re required to do to protect the rights of transgender students.

The federal directive says schools must allow a student’s gender identity — not necessarily the sex listed on their birth certificate — to dictate which bathroom they may use and whether they can play for the girls’ or boys’ sports team.

The guidance is unlikely to cause much protest among Massachusetts educators though, according to John Provost, the superintendent of the Northampton Public Schools.

“I feel that the federal guidance, in a lot of ways, just affirms what the state has been telling us to do and what we have been doing for transgender students since 2011,” Provost said.

The situation is much the same in Connecticut because of a state law that prohibits discrimination based on gender identity.

The U.S. Department of Education and Department of Justice say schools across the country are bound by the federal government’s mandate and could face the loss of funding if they don’t comply.