Tuesday’s Lowell City Council meeting covered a variety of topics with a discussion of how the Lowell Police Department interacts (or doesn’t interact) with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents being most important, although I’ll save that until last.

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There was a public hearing and then a vote to amend the city ordinance on fees to make the annual residential trash fee $335 (up from the current $225) with the charge for a non-owner-occupied residence $600 (up from the current $425). This had previously been discussed by the council, but it was still surprising that not a single person spoke at the public hearing, either for or against, and no councilor commented on it before voting unanimously for the fee increase.

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There was some good news on the Lowell High renovation front. Since the start of this year, the council has anxiously awaited firm figures on the cost of unbudgeted remediation in the Coburn Hall building. Several councilors even sprained their fingers while wagging them at the contractors, warning them not to come back seeking more money. Now that interior demolition work has uncovered the areas of concern, they turned out not to be that big an issue and any additional costs will fit within the current budget.

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The complicated intersection of Appleton, Church, Central and Gorham Streets will be getting a much-needed remake. Statistically shown to be extremely dangerous for motor vehicles, cyclists and especially pedestrians, the historic and potentially very valuable buildings that border the intersection have all been at an economic disadvantage due to the challenges and risks faced by pedestrians trying to access them.

Now, the Commonwealth has awarded a $4.7 million grant to the city to make safety upgrades. (On Tuesday, the council formally voted to accept the grant.) A sketch of the intended work shows more pronounced crosswalks and associated signals and safer-for-pedestrian curb layouts as the primary output of the work.

For motor vehicles, when coming in-bound on Gorham/Central Street and turning right onto Church Street, the separated right turn lane that now has the sidewalk on one side and a pedestrian island on the other will be erased. In its place there will be a normal right-turn lane.

Ironically, the current design was a 1980s redesign that was one of several preconditions for the Hilton Hotel (most recently, the UMass Lowell Inn & Conference Center) coming to downtown Lowell. Before that, Gorham Street was laid out as it is today only it had two-way traffic, and Central Street was a straight shot up the hill to the Back Central neighborhood, with two-way traffic. The Hilton-mandated change created the big sweeping curve on Gorham Street that funnels inbound traffic from Gorham onto Central and then onto Church and onto George right to the hotel. The design purpose was to let cars drive like they were on a divided highway from the Lowell Connector straight to the Hilton Hotel without regard to the densely packed neighborhood the road passes through. This project won’t unwind that “highway in the middle of the city” design that plagues so much of downtown Lowell; it will just make some safety tweaks amid it.

Another roadway change of this new project involves the small stretch of Appleton between Gorham and Central and then on Church from Central to George Street. This is now three lanes wide, but it will be downsized to just two lanes. This should slow the traffic a bit, which will be helpful because after navigating the clogged intersection, drivers feel the urge to accelerate through the straightaway in front of Central Plaza, which creates dangerous conditions for those waiting for the bus or trying to cross the street. Having just two lanes instead of three should slow traffic slightly.

Work on this project is supposed to commence in 2027.

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The issue of ICE and the Lowell Police Department arose with the response to an earlier motion by Councilor Sean McDonough requesting statistics on ICE arrests, detentions and other activities in the city and what, if any, assistance has been provided by the Lowell Police.

The motion response from Police Superintendent Gregory Hudon said there were “no records responsive to this request” and went on to make the following points:

• Immigration enforcement is the responsibility of the federal government and is “not subject to oversight by the Lowell Police Department.”
• When a person requests assistance, the Lowell Police Department does not “routinely question any person about his or her specific citizenship or immigration status.”
• The Lowell Department “routinely cooperates with all our law enforcement partners” such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), however, the LPD has “had no requests to cooperate with ICE.”
• The Lowell Police “are also bound by law to make arrests when a judicially issued federal arrest warrant exists for an individual” and in cases of threats to public safety and to national security.

The Superintendent’s memo also states, correctly, that Massachusetts law does not permit police officers to detain an individual pursuant to a federal civil immigration detainer or administrative warrant.

In the 2017 case of Lunn v. Commonwealth, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that Massachusetts court officers – and by extension, local police officers – do not have the authority to hold a person in custody solely because of a federal immigration detainer. Here’s the court’s reasoning:

Detaining someone against their will constitutes an arrest under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and therefore must be supported by probable cause that a crime has been committed and that the person being held is the one who did it. It doesn’t matter whether someone has said, “you’re under arrest;” the test is whether the person is detained. If the person is not free to leave, then it’s an arrest.

In the Lunn case, Lunn had been charged in state court with a state crime. Bail was set but not paid, so he remained in custody, however, the case was soon dismissed for failure to prosecute. In the meantime, a Federal immigration officer sent the court where Lunn was to appear a “civil detainer” which is an assertion by the Federal authorities that the person named is subject to removal from the country and also a request that the state authorities hold the person for up to 48 hours to give the Feds time to arrive and take them into custody. The court officers in this case did just that, with the concurrence of the judge who had dismissed the state charges, and Lunn was soon in Federal custody.

The SJC reviewed Federal immigration law, especially a 2012 US Supreme Court case that held that being in the country illegally is not a crime but is a civil violation. (Crossing into the country without permission is a misdemeanor, but simply being here, for example, if you have over-stayed your visa, is just a civil infraction.) The SJC also found that nothing in Federal immigration law invested state and local law enforcement officials with the authority to hold someone facing civil removal.

While a Lowell police officer has no authority to detain a person pursuant to a Federal civil warrant, an ICE officer does have the legal authority to do that. The logic used by Federal courts is that these arrests are not punitive (which would require criminal due process) but procedural in that it permits the executive branch to enforce laws regarding who may stay in the country.

The Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution establishes that the Constitution and Federal laws are “the supreme law of the land” and take precedence over conflicting state laws. Consequently, the Federal law that permits ICE to make these arrests on the streets of Lowell takes precedence over conflicting state law that would analyze the arrest differently.

Now in normal times, if the Lowell Police was alerted that heavily armed, masked men, were roaming our streets in unmarked vans and grabbing people, there would be a rapid and overwhelming police response including the mobilization of the regional SWAT team. But these aren’t normal times because the de facto policy of the Federal government is not reasonable immigration enforcement, it’s to terrorize and intimidate people of color and anyone who gets in the way of that effort, hence, the masked, heavily armed Federal agents in our midst.

At one point on Tuesday, Superintendent Hudon mentioned avoiding a “blue on blue” incident by which he meant law enforcement officers from different agencies shooting at each other. Although it was never mentioned, I suspect that an incident in Worcester a year ago has also shaped the thinking of many police departments on this issue. In that case, on May 8, 2025, ICE agents detained a woman on a neighborhood street which prompted relatives and neighbors to surround the scene in protest. Worcester police officers arrived and intervened, arresting the 16-year-old daughter of the woman being detained by ICE and another woman. The incident sparked protests against the Worcester Police Department’s role in the arrests and launched an internal city investigation.

While the official policy of the Lowell Police may be to not assist ICE, at least in the absence of a judicial (criminal) warrant, the unofficial policy of the LPD might just be to stay as far away as possible from any ICE activity, both to avoid the risk of shooting at each other but also to steer clear of a repeat of the Worcester incident of last year.

If that’s the case, it’s unfortunate, because the presence of local police officers, even as passive observers when ICE is grabbing people off the streets, could be beneficial. We’ve all seen the power of video in holding Federal authorities to account and in shaping public opinion against the tactics being employed. Local police with their body cameras turned on to record everything would provide important evidence of what was happening in our city and might even keep confrontations from escalating.

But for now, the city’s official policy is essentially, “there’s nothing we can do” which is regrettable, because it deprives our residents of the feeling that at least those in local government are looking out for them. Furthermore, when setting community expectations or even aspirations, for all the “coffee with a cop” get togethers and the “our police force represents our community” demographic statistics, the “thin blue line” cultural allegiance among all those in law enforcement is powerful and will likely prevail in most circumstances.

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Speaking of how to respond to authoritarian regimes, this week in Seen & Heard I reviewed the 2025 movie Nuremberg which is about the post World War II war crime trials of Nazi leaders. I also commented on a YouTube interview of historian Beverly Gage talking about her Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of J. Edgar Hoover; and discussed a New York Times article that compares the current disruption of oil flowing from the Persian Gulf to the “oil shocks” of the 1970s.

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A reminder that this spring’s tours of historic Lowell Cemetery will take place on Saturday, May 2, and on Sunday, May 3, both at 10am from the Knapp Avenue entrance.