The Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts opposes the unlawful and anti-American actions of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security in Massachusetts, Minnesota, Maine, and throughout the United States. Our mission calls on us to defend democratic institutions and equal justice under law. Protecting constitutional rights, especially for those most vulnerable to state power, is the foundation of that work.

The accelerating disregard of core constitutional protections we are collectively witnessing, for non-citizens and citizens alike, is unacceptable. The disproportionate impact on communities of color is deplorable. The reckless cruelty towards children is sickening. That our federal government is presently unapologetically engaged in recurring and patently unconstitutional abuses of individual liberties and bodies in the broad light of day should raise an urgent alarm in each of us.  

When attorneys are admitted to practice law in Massachusetts, we stand side by side with our peers and swear oaths to support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. These are oaths to uphold ideals and ideas larger than ourselves, upon which our government and our individual freedoms rely. The privilege of the practice of law comes hand in hand with a heightened responsibility to that law, and to the people it governs. We practice law because the law matters, and we remember that each of our voices and efforts matter in the shaping and protecting of that law. We encourage our members and allies to use their voices, privileges, and power in defense of our most dearly held values in this critical moment.

“The end of the institution, maintenance, and administration of government, is to secure the existence of the body politic, to protect it, and to furnish the individuals who compose it with the power of enjoying in safety and tranquility their natural rights, and the blessings of life: and whenever these great objects are not obtained, the people have a right to alter the government, and to take measures necessary for their safety, prosperity and happiness.” - Preamble to the Massachusetts Constitution

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” – Preamble to the United States Constitution

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

The New Colossus
Emma Lazarus
November 2, 1883

Sincerely,

Julie D. Palmer
President, Women's Bar Association