Massachusetts bill would let people sue ICE agents over rights violations

Massachusetts lawmakers are working to reconcile competing versions of an immigration bill, and the most contentious unresolved question is whether people can sue individual ICE agents in state court over alleged constitutional violations during civil immigration enforcement — a remedy that would not be limited to illegal immigrants.

The provision is part of the PROTECT Act, a package restricting state and local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. The state Senate passed its version of the bill 37-3 in May, building on a House bill that passed 134-21 in March, and the two chambers are now working through a conference committee to reconcile substantial differences before sending a final bill to Gov. Maura Healey. 

The Senate bill creates a right of action letting individuals sue under state law for constitutional deprivations during civil immigration enforcement; the House version does not include that provision. As written, the cause of action turns on alleged constitutional violations, not immigration status — meaning U.S. citizens and lawful immigrants caught up in an enforcement encounter could potentially invoke it as well. The bill does not itself specify a schedule of damages; the scope of any monetary remedy would depend on the statute’s final language and, ultimately, how courts interpret it. 

The two chambers diverge well beyond that provision. The House bill would specifically protect courthouses and grants the governor authority to limit civil immigration enforcement in nonpublic areas of “any state entity,” while the Senate adopted language creating four additional categories of protected spaces — with detailed policy, notice, and parent-notification requirements for schools and child care programs. The House bill separately spelled out obligations for jails and prisons around legal access, interpreter services, transfer notification, and a public locator line, along with a requirement that courts weigh a defendant’s “likelihood of imminent deportation” when setting bail — none of which the Senate bill includes. The Senate version also imposes tighter restrictions on state officials sharing nonpublic personal information with federal authorities and would eliminate a narrow pathway for new 287(g) cooperation agreements that the House had preserved. Negotiators have more time than in past sessions: Under revised legislative rules, the House and Senate have until the first week of January to reach a compromise, rather than the traditional July 31 deadline. 

The right-to-sue provision, if it survives conference, would put Massachusetts in company with Illinois, whose similar “Bivens Act” is already tied up in federal court. The Illinois law gives individuals the right to sue anyone who knowingly violates the Illinois or U.S. Constitution while conducting civil immigration enforcement, and was paired with a separate measure barring civil immigration arrests at state courthouses. The Justice Department sued Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Attorney General Kwame Raoul in December, arguing the law represents an unconstitutional attempt to regulate federal officers and exposes them to “ruinous liability and even punitive damages for executing federal law.” 

Massachusetts’ bill arrives against the backdrop of Ms. Healey’s earlier handling of the state’s migrant shelter crisis. According to the state’s own biweekly report to the Legislature’s Ways and Means committees, filed jointly by the Executive Office for Administration and Finance and the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, Massachusetts spent $829.3 million on its Emergency Assistance shelter system in fiscal 2025 through mid-June, covering 4,088 families at a weekly average cost of $3,496 per family. Ms. Healey formally ended the shelter emergency and closed the state’s remaining hotel shelters last August.

Critics argue the sue-the-agents provision, alongside restrictions limiting how officials can share release information with ICE, will push arrests out of controlled settings like jails and into public spaces. In an analysis for the Washington Examiner, columnist Sam Davis wrote that barring officials from coordinating jailhouse handoffs “forecloses the single smoothest, least dangerous, and most controlled handoff option” and predicted the bill “will backfire — including, and especially, on the politicians who wrote it.”

Supporters have framed the legislation differently. Senate President Karen Spilka said the goal was to “defend the safety, dignity and rights” of Massachusetts residents amid what she and other Democrats have described as increasingly aggressive federal tactics.