Internal Frontiers

Photo: A U.S. Border Patrol agent (right) and an ICE officer detain a protester outside the ICE facility in Portland, Oregon, Oct. 4, 2025. Source: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

On Tuesday, May 27, 2025, ICE arrested 40 people on Martha’s Vineyard, one of the wealthiest islands in the United States. News reports described growing fear among the island’s immigrant community. But the coverage left out one critical question: why were the immigrants taken away while the fundamental enablers remain untouched in their mansions?

That’s the part no one talks about, regardless of political party. How did those immigrants end up on Martha’s Vineyard in the first place? Who gave them jobs? Who rented them housing in one of the most unaffordable real estate markets in the country? What wages were they paid? And if some of them were allegedly involved in drug distribution, as the government claims, who bought the drugs?

ICE didn’t raid country clubs or knock on the doors of luxury landlords or employers who depend on immigrant labor for landscaping, cleaning, construction, or care work.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a new phenomenon. Both Democrats and Republicans have helped sustain an economy that depends on cheap and vulnerable labor. Undocumented workers are easy to hire and easier to threaten. They are essential and disposable at the same time.

Some residents may still believe that raids like these only target people with criminal records. However, ICE revealed in the following weeks that more than 40 percent of the nearly 1,500 arrests made during a months-long operation involved individuals with no criminal record. So, the question remains: who is ICE targeting and protecting?

Despite Governor Maura Healey’s recent statement that Massachusetts isn’t a “sanctuary jurisdiction,” state law limits cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities, except in certain cases. The reality is more complicated than political slogans on either side of the debate.

Politicians often present sanctuary policies as humanitarian measures, but they also function within an economic system that quietly relies on immigrant labor. They allow industries to continue benefiting from low-wage workers while giving state and city officials the political cover to project a more compassionate image.

Puerto Ricans were once the cheap labor force in Massachusetts, particularly between the 1940s and the 1970s. They performed some of the most demanding jobs for the lowest wages. Black workers in the state have also faced similar economic pressures for generations.

When the economy shifted, the government left many underpaid workers behind, with limited opportunities for upward mobility, concentrated in some of the state’s economically distressed municipalities.

Today, immigrants occupy a similar position, only without the protection of legal status. The model remains the same: rely on vulnerable labor when it is economically convenient, and look away when the system fails the people who sustain it.

If Donald Trump continues pushing his anti-immigrant agenda with the same intensity we are already seeing, Massachusetts’s economy will likely feel the consequences. The state has quietly relied on foreign-born residents to offset population loss.

Many residents have been leaving Massachusetts for states with lower costs of living and warmer climates, while immigrants have helped stabilize the population loss. Without them, key sectors—from elder care to construction—could face serious shortages.

The current political climate should be an opportunity for Massachusetts to confront the deeper issues behind these tensions, particularly the state’s extremely high cost of living and the inequality that accompanies it.

For too long, policymakers in Massachusetts have chosen to soften the consequences through social assistance programs rather than addressing the structural problems that make that assistance so necessary.

That approach has allowed the same economic interests to retain disproportionate influence while avoiding any serious conversation about broader economic opportunity. If the immigrant workforce that the state has quietly depended on begins to disappear, symbolic policies and political messaging won’t be enough.

The real question is whether Massachusetts will confront these contradictions or continue hiding behind its progressive image while the foundations of its economic model remain unchanged.