A few years ago, Newton became a “welcoming city.” Is that the same as a sanctuary city? And does it matter?

Newton may be about to find out, as the Trump administration sends Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents into communities to round up immigrants for deportation.

“Newton’s Welcoming City ordinance affirms the City’s commitment to making all residents, workers and visitors feel safe and secure regardless of immigration status and the ordinance has served our community well,” Mayor Ruthanne Fuller said.

A welcoming gesture

In 2017, the Newton City Council passed an ordinance making the Garden City a “welcoming city,” with City Councilor Susan Albright leading the push.

The ordinance—enacted during President Donald Trump’s first term amidst his ban on immigrants from Muslim-majority nations—prohibits local law enforcement and city officials from arresting, investigating or alerting federal authorities about someone based solely on immigration status. It also bars the city from cooperating with the federal government on any efforts to create a registry based on ethnic origin or religion.

So, where did the term “welcoming city” come from? It turns out, the home of the Cubs, the Obamas and deep-dish pizza.

“I looked around for ordinances that were similar, ones that I liked the way they were written, and I found the one in Chicago, and they called theirs the Welcoming City Ordinance,” Albright said. “So it’s based on Chicago’s ordinance.”

Trump is back in the Oval Office, and he’s doubled down on his push for mass deportations. In the past several weeks, ICE agents have been seen grabbing people off the streets across Massachusetts, including in Worcester, Waltham, Watertown and Newton.

And this past weekend, a high school honors student in Milford, who immigrated here with his family from Brazil when he was 5 years old, was taken from a vehicle by ICE agents and detained.

“What are they doing? They’re just finding normal, regular people who have been here for years,” Albright said.

What ‘welcoming’ means

The Welcoming City ordinance makes Newton a sanctuary-like city in that it prohibits Newton police from assisting ICE in arresting anyone unless an investigation has shown that the suspect in question is under investigation for terrorism, has been convicted of a major felony, or has an outstanding criminal warrant.

And even then, the ordinance states that all investigation procedures must be in compliance with the 4th Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article XIV of the Massachusetts Constitution, Fuller explained.

“The ordinance clarifies that the City does not identify, investigate, arrest, detain, or continue to detain a person solely on the belief that the person is not present legally in the United States, that the person has committed a civil immigration violation, or that the person is otherwise deportable,” Fuller said.

Albright emphasized that immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility.

“It’s not our job. Its ICE’s job,” Albright said. “It just seems like common sense. It’s not the city’s job, it’s the fed’s job, to do whatever they feel they need to do with respect to immigration.”

When the ordinance was crafted, Albright said, a lot of letters came in supporting it. One that sticks out in her mind was from the Matahari Women Workers Center.

“It talked about how you don’t want people who are undocumented, who are immigrants, to feel scared to go to the police if they are a victim of a crime,” Albright said. “And the woman who wrote this letter said that they’re particularly happy that people aren’t going to be afraid of police because they’ll know the police are there to help them and not to turn them in, making the point of how wonderful that is for people’s safety and people’s stability and comfort.”

Facing the feds

The Department of Homeland Security, under an executive order by President Trump, recently released a list of hundreds of cities and towns deemed sanctuary communities, and Newton is on that list. In fact, Massachusetts has been deemed a sanctuary state, and all Massachusetts counties except Hampden County are deemed sanctuary districts as well.

This could mean a loss of federal funding for the city, the county and the state.

In a Friday email to the community, Fuller had a blunt response: “The White House is wrong,”

Fuller reiterated that Newton’s ordinance does not violate existing federal law because it doesn’t interfere with ICE activity.

“That the U.S. Department of Homeland Security would target our community with language that incites fear and division and that the White House would withhold funding for our community is legally incorrect, constitutionally wrong, morally compromised, and deeply unsettling,” she continued.

Fuller added that Newton gets about $10 million of its almost $600 million budget paid for with federal money. That’s about 1.7 percent.

Attorney General Andrea Campbell recently published a guide regarding people’s rights when confronted by ICE agents as well as what ICE agents are and are not allowed to do.

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If you have a story to share regarding ICE and related activity, contact Bryan McGonigle at editor@newtonbeacon.org.