Residents Weigh In On County Immigration Ordinance

BARNSTABLE – Adam Liss remembers being called out to a laundromat near his home in Marstons Mills to serve as a verifier for the LUCE Immigrant Justice Network of Massachusetts. It was dark. The laundromat was closed. But inside, a mother and her two young children were taking shelter.

 Weeks earlier, he said, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had come to the family’s home and threatened the children’s father with deportation.

 “Somehow he managed not to be arrested, but that family was terrified from that moment on,” he told the assembly during its May 20 meeting.

 The assembly is trying to alleviate that fear with a new ordinance that aims to restrict immigration enforcement and activity on county property. Many residents spoke out in support of the ordinance at the May 20 hearing, while others voiced opposition to the perceived protections it would offer undocumented immigrants in the region.

 As written, “An Ordinance Ensuring Community Safety and Lawful Federal Immigration Enforcement” would ban ICE from non-public areas of county property including courthouses, prohibit the use of county facilities as staging areas for immigration enforcement, protect residents' personal information, and establish transparency reporting requirements around enforcement activity on county property. 

 Delegates Daniel Gessen (Falmouth), Brian O’Malley (Provincetown), Sallie Tighe (Truro) and J. Terrance Gallagher (Eastham) are sponsoring the ordinance, which is designed to ensure that all Cape residents can safely access and utilize county resources and services regardless of their legal status.

 “As the son of immigrants who came to America as refugees, I know this issue affects people in our own community,” Gessen said in a press release ahead of the May 20 hearing. “When people are afraid to go to court or use county services, every Cape Codder is less safe. It’s important for our neighbors to come out and make that case to the rest of the Assembly.” 

 The majority of residents who spoke during the hearing supported the proposed ordinance. While he did not refer to him by name, Rev. Rod MacDonald of Brewster shared the story of Thiago Bastos, a Hyannis man who spent nine months in an ICE facility in Berlin, N.H., following his arrest on charges including operating under the influence of alcohol in May 2025. The charges against Bastos were ultimately dismissed in Orleans District Court in December, after ICE officials failed to allow him to appear in person or virtually to face the charges. Bastos was released from ICE custody on bail in February.

 “We and our neighbors, citizen or immigrant, should be able to trust that when some business or need brings us to county court or other property, there will be no one there to snatch us away and to insult our constitution,” McDonald said.

 Dennis resident Wayne Bergeron said that the restrictions proposed in the ordinance are “long overdue.” He lamented the “lack of due process” under the Fifth Amendment that has come with immigration enforcement activity nationwide. That includes in Minneapolis, Minn., where two U.S. citizens were shot and killed earlier this year during ICE activity in the city.

 “The tragedy of the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, two United States citizens, is a sharp reminder of what police force and little or no accountability can bear,” he said.

 For Nina Tepper, a local ESL teacher, the villainization of the immigrant community under the Trump administration undermines the “American dream” that many immigrants come to America in pursuit of.

 “For many of my students, that dream is being shattered,” she said.

 Heidi Schmidt of Provincetown brought attention to the place that the local immigrant population has on the Cape and the impact it has on the regional economy.

 “Until  2025, people who had entered this country and overstayed visas were simply not called illegal immigrants nor thought of as illegal immigrants,” she said. “They were welcomed. Why were they welcomed? Because they contribute enormously to the economy and they take nothing back.”

 Jim Wolf of Yarmouth shared a first-hand account of the help he received from immigrant workers last year after he was hospitalized with problems stemming from a hip replacement procedure.

 “I had 14 nurses at Cape Cod Hospital over 21 days of three surgeries," he said. “Thirteen of them were immigrants after 2005.”

 But others objected to the proposed ordinance, saying it will make Cape communities less safe. Ken Barron of Barnstable called President Joe Biden’s open border policy “one of the biggest domestic disasters in modern American history,” blaming it for allowing an influx of millions of undocumented immigrants, including “thousands” on federal terrorist watch lists.

 “We need to get a handle on that, who comes into this country,” he said.

 “I don’t know where you’re getting your news. I can guess, but it’s not fact,” said Priscilla Mariani, a resident of Dennis.

 Sandwich resident Eileen Stars said she looked into 37 arrests by Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) in Boston between 2022 and 2024. Those included arrests involving “murder, rape and heinous gang related crime.” She said the ordinance will only attract more illegal immigrants to the region.

“It’s time that we put the safety of our own citizens above the twisted ideology that illegal criminals deserve to inflict pain and suffering on our families, friends and neighbors,” she said.

Andrew Derogiers raised his voice in frustration over what he saw as local and state government efforts to support and aid the immigrant community over legal residents. 

“I don’t get health insurance,” he said. “I can’t afford it. But I am punished by this state for not being able to afford it so that people who are in this country illegally can benefit from it and go see the doctor whenever they want. That is a fact, and I am sick of it.”

Others saw the ordinance as a way of keeping federal immigration enforcement accountable to the rule of law.

“Nobody should be afraid to enter a courthouse or county office because they fear being detained without proper legal process,” said Ryan Walker of Falmouth.

 “We have to have fair treatment,” said Sandra Faiman-Silva, also of Falmouth. “We have to do what we can, and it is certainly within the jurisdictional authority of the county to pass this ordinance and to ensure that the laws are fully enforced and fully implemented as they are written, and not as they’re fabricated by rogue authorities.”

 Barnstable County Commissioner Ron Bergstrom commended the assembly on its work in crafting the ordinance, but noted that the commissioners in April already voted on an executive order to ban ICE activity from all county property.

 Bergstrom said while he believes all immigrants living in the United States should work toward legal citizenship, he objected to the manner in which ICE is going about enforcing federal immigration policy.

 “It’s basically theater,” he said. “It belongs in a video game. It doesn’t belong in real life.”

 But Gessen said that the ordinance goes further than the executive order, which does not include language about protecting personal information. He asked if the commissioners would veto the ordinance if the assembly voted in favor of adopting it.

 “We would probably ignore it,” Bergstrom said.

 The assembly voted 8-7 to delay a final vote on the ordinance in order to get more information on how its passage might impact county operations.