President Donald Trump’s administration and Congressional Republicans are increasingly targeting Massachusetts over immigration policies and alleged antisemitism at institutions of higher education.
From Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s testimony in Washington on the city’s so-called “sanctuary status” to investigations into local colleges and universities, federal lawmakers and officials in the Trump administration are setting their sights on the Bay State.
The latest salvo from conservatives on immigration came in the form of Sen. Ted Cruz’s threat to subpoena the Massachusetts Port Authority in an effort to produce information on the migrants that slept at Logan International Airport during the height of new arrivals.
The Texas Republican’s pressure tactic worked.
The quasi-public agency coughed up documents that show it spent $779,000 in extra public safety, transportation, and janitorial services to deal with the estimated 5,500 migrants that flew into the airport between July 2023 and July 2024, the Herald reported this past week.
Some of that cost — $332,000 — was covered by folding it into the rates and charges paid by airlines while the rest, $447,000, was shouldered by the Massachusetts Port Authority.
The cost of newly arrived migrants in Massachusetts has been a long-running debate on Beacon Hill, where state officials expect to spend $1 billion in fiscal year 2025 on the state-run emergency shelter system housing local and migrant families.
But the elevation of the debate to the federal level has prompted a whole new wave of criticism pointed directly at leaders in City Hall and the State House.
Colleges and universities in Massachusetts have also found themselves in the spotlight.
The Department of Justice fired a shot this past week when it notified Wu about a plan to visit her to judge how City Hall is responding to “incidents of antisemitism” on college and university campuses in Boston.
Federal prosecutors also plan to visit New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago to assess how schools “may have failed to protect Jewish students from unlawful discrimination, in potential violation of federal law,” the Herald reported.
That came after more than 60 institutions of higher education, including nine in New England, received letters from the U.S. Department of Education warning them of “potential enforcement actions” if they do not protect Jewish students on their campuses.
The letters were sent to Boston University, Emerson College, Harvard University, Tufts University, UMass Amherst, and Wellesley College.
Officials at UMass Amherst argued they “take all lawful and appropriate measures to protect Jewish students, faculty, and staff from the predations of antisemitic antagonists, whether in the classroom, on campus, or within educational programs and activities.”
The U.S. Department of Education also announced Friday that it was launching investigations at MIT for allegedly “engaging in race-exclusionary practices in their graduate programs” and the New England College Optometry in Boston for “alleged impermissible race-based scholarships and race-based segregation.”
McMahon said students need to be assessed according to merit and accomplishment and “not prejudged by the color of their skin.”
“The agency has already launched Title VI investigations into institutions where widespread antisemitic harassment has been reported and Title IX investigations into entities which allegedly continue to allow sex discrimination; today’s announcement expands our efforts to ensure universities are not discriminating against their students based on race and race stereotypes,” she said in a statement.
Local colleges and universities have also found themselves worried about potential federal funding losses after the Trump administration froze $400 million in grants for Columbia University in New York over its alleged failure to combat antisemitism.
Trump officials made an extraordinary demand of Columbia University Thursday when they demanded the institution cede control of an international studies department and make other sweeping changes like banning masks that conceal the wearer’s identity.
“We expect your immediate compliance with these critical next steps,” officials from the Department of Education, General Services Administration, and Department of Health and Human Services wrote in a letter sent Thursday night to the university.
The targeted moves directed at higher education institutions have had a chilling effect in Massachusetts.
The University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School in Worcester rescinded provisional admission offers to PhD applicants and froze all hiring amid uncertainty around federal funding.
Harvard University also announced a hiring freeze this past week after the Trump administration stripped the $400 million in grant funding from Columbia University.
Materials from the Associated Press were used in this report.