Attorneys general from around New England struck a defiant posture at a town hall gathering on Friday evening. Together, they pledged that nothing is off the table when it comes to holding immigration officials accountable, lauded the courts for standing firm so far, and pointed at an ever-growing pile of litigation targeting the Trump administration’s actions on everything from energy policy to anti-discrimination law.
“All of us probably have a target on our back,” Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell said, speaking from the IBEW Local 103 union hall in Dorchester. “But we say bring it on.”
The town hall included the region’s Democratic AGs – Campbell, William Tong of Connecticut, Peter Neronha of Rhode Island, Charity Clark of Vermont, and Aaron Frey of Maine. Billed as “United in Justice,” the gathering was distinctly aimed at Trump administration policies that the group has declared will damage the region and its residents.
Attorneys general, advocacy organizations, and individuals have leveled dozens of lawsuits at the Trump administration. They say that executive actions targeting immigration, the global economy, public health and scientific research funding, higher education, and marginalized groups are “unlawful” and “damaging.”
“After last November’s election and the anxiety that goes with it, we all felt our fight was gonna get a little tougher, a little steeper, and our work a lot harder,” said introductory speaker Lou Antonellis, business manager of the Dorchester union and executive vice president of the building and construction trades with the Greater Boston Labor Council. “And those words ring truer and truer every day for Americans because of this administration. Unless, of course, you’re rich.”
A union member at the town hall noted the administration’s antagonism toward renewable energy options, when unions are training their members on offshore wind work. Democratic attorneys general filed a lawsuit in Boston federal court this month to block Trump’s pause on all federal wind-energy approvals.
Being attorney general of a blue state during a Trump administration has proved to be a high-stakes launching pad. Gov. Maura Healey made a national name for herself as attorney general by, like her successor Campbell, taking an aggressive stance toward the first Trump presidency. Her office sued the administration nearly 100 times, while Campbell has filed more than a dozen suits against the administration in the first 100 days of the new Trump term.
State law enforcement officials are in a tricky spot when it comes to defending against some federal policies, the attorneys general noted, especially around immigration. Multiple attendees asked what the state can do to push back on what one described as an “autocratic police state.”
There is significant federal authority to enforce and create immigration policies, placing the attorneys general in “uncharted territory” in figuring out how to wield state power against federal actors.
The offices are putting out guidance for individuals and organizations, fighting against policy changes that would claw back immigration protections like Temporary Protected Status, connecting people with lawyers, and reminding law enforcement that it does not need to enable Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Campbell spoke positively of the decision by Worcester’s police chief to request that charges be dropped against the distraught 16-year-old daughter of a woman arrested in an ICE incident that has drawn intense backlash.
But “nothing is off the table” when it comes to pushing back on ICE oversteps, she said.
“If the US attorney can threaten us about us getting in the way of these policies and immigration enforcement, well, guess what? We can bring it back,” Campbell said, adding slyly, “in a collaborative and loving way.”
Neronha, of Rhode Island, said withholding cooperation to federal agents looking to “commandeer” state law enforcement could be a serious impediment to ICE efforts.
He also laid out how he sees the administration’s playbook in general: bypass congressional power of the purse, strip allocated taxpayer dollars from essential programs or make sweeping declarations on constitutional matters, and challenge the legitimacy of district courts when they issue nationwide injunctions blocking the president’s actions.
“What we’re dealing with here, in my view, is a creeping authoritarianism,” he said. “And it’s not really creeping, is it?” To constituents who are looking for hope, he asked that they remember “every day there are lawyers who get up in the morning, like my colleagues here and all across the country in Democratic states, and fight for you. We are your lawyers. We are fighting for you, and we are winning.”
The latest legal volley from a collective of Democratic attorneys general – including the five New England AGs participating in the town hall – challenges a federal threat to withhold billions of dollars in transportation and disaster-relief funds unless states agree to cooperate with certain immigration enforcement actions.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in an emailed statement to Axios that no funding has been withheld.
New Hampshire Attorney General John Formella, who was elected president of the National Association of Attorneys General in December and has not joined attorney general coalitions suing the Trump administration during this second term, is the only Republican attorney general in New England and was the only regional AG not present. A spokesperson said Formella had a full schedule for New Hampshire law enforcement memorial day, but the spokesman was not aware of Friday night’s town hall.
As attorney general of the most conservative New England state, though it narrowly voted for Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, Formella’s office does not always split along partisan lines. He joined other Republican attorneys general in suits against former President Joe Biden, such as a volley against a vaccination-testing mandate, but also brought a civil rights lawsuit in 2024 against members of the neo-Nazi group Nationalist Social Club-131 who allegedly harassed a Concord cafe hosting drag story hours.
The day before the town hall, Campbell and Tong joined Democratic attorneys general from New Jersey, Washington, and California after U.S. Supreme Court arguments on Trump’s executive order purporting to end birthright citizenship for the children of parents who enter the U.S. illegally or on a temporary visa.
Tong noted on Friday that so far the “courts are holding,” but some of the voices in the current administration are still talking about potentially “de-naturalizing” American citizens like his parents, Tong said.
The case currently before the nation’s high court is ostensibly about whether lower court judges can issue injunctions halting presidential executive orders nationwide – rather than only applying to a specific set of plaintiffs who bring suits inside specific jurisdictions – but justices toyed with whether they should consider the underlying merits of the birthright citizenship suit as well.
“I think what’s most important is not just the limited argument today,” Campbell said. “It’s that everyone should care about this birthright citizenship issue. It is not just about the access to citizenship and the privileges afforded by citizenship. If they can dismantle the 14th Amendment in our Constitution, they can also dismantle the other rights and privileges afforded our residents.”
The president took to his social media platform, Truth Social, after the arguments before the Supreme Court.
“The Radical Left SleazeBags, which has no cards remaining in its illegal bag of tricks, is, in a very coordinated manner, PLAYING THE REF with regard to the United States Supreme Court,” he posted. “They lost the Election in a landslide, and with it, have totally lost their confidence and reason. They are stone cold CRAZY! I hope the Supreme Court doesn’t fall for the games they play. The people are with us in bigger numbers than ever before. They want to, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
Trump continued lashing out throughout Friday after the U.S. Supreme Court maintained a block on his deportations under wartime law.
The U.S. government is ultimately “an honor system,” Tong said, constructed of people bound together by belief and commitment to democratic principles. No higher power is going to force Trump to comply with the rule of law, but the country is too diverse and decentralized to be “swallowed whole” by any one administration, he added
“Be as noisy and chaotic and boisterous as we can be,” he said, “in every state and every jurisdiction, and make it hard for them every step of the way.”
This article first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
