Burlington Passes Anti-ICE Town Meeting Resolution

ByJohn

The Burlington Town Meeting voted nearly unanimously to condemn violations of local zoning laws and the inhuman conditions of detention at the ICE district facility in Burlington. The resolution called for ICE to cease overnight and extended detentions at the Burlington facility and to comply fully with the conditions they agreed to when they first leased the building and promised the town.

The resolution also demanded that Federal, state, and local authorities investigate and take corrective action, including but not limited to, gaining access to the property, to ensure compliance with zoning laws and other regulations.

No one expects a lawless rogue agency like ICE to comply with a town meeting resolution. But it is an important victory, and came about due to hard work of publicizing, knocking on doors, and educating people about the issue.

We are in a political situation where a rogue federal authority is attacking the sovereignty of states and cities and towns controlled by political opponents of Trump. The first defense for fighting back is to use the sovereignty that we have, guaranteed in our American Constitution. This includes rights of state and local governments to manage their affairs and to pass their own laws and regulations. Asserting this sovereign power is the first step to broad resistance.

ICE is not just attacking and abducting individuals. They are attacking and violating the sovereignty of our state and our cities and towns. This is what the American revolution was fought over, and why limits were placed on federal authority, and why all rights not enumerated for the federal government were reserved to the states.

By taking this step, Burlington has gone on record defending its sovereignty. It will be a long battle, but nothing changes until we stand up and defend ourselves in every place we have the ability to do so. We congratulate the people of Burlington for taking this action.

Similar Posts

  • Building the Resistance, One Circle of Trust at a Time

    ByJohn

    Toby Sackton at First Parish Wayland: Why Movements Are Built on Trust, Not Leaders.

    In a talk at First Parish in Wayland in March, Toby Sackton gave what might be the most complete account yet of why this moment demands something different from conventional politics and what Lexington Alarm has been building since Patriots Day 2025.

    The talk, titled “Building Effective Resistance,” was part history, part organizing theory, part urgent call to action. Sackton began with the personal. “I have been an activist since the 1960s,” he told the room. “When the war in Ukraine started, I was glued to the news every day. Gaza was worse. When Trump was reelected, it was another shock. Truly, the world was coming apart. I doom scrolled. I read every atrocity from doge, the attack on science every firing, every attack on immigrants and Black people.”

    What broke the spiral, he said, was not a policy win or an electoral outcome it was human connection. “When a group of us founded Lexington Alarm one year ago, for the first time since the Vietnam era, I felt part of this broad network of people, a movement, that had majority support, all working towards a rough common vision grounded in the ideas of equality and the promise of what America could be.”

    Sackton started with a diagnosis. “Since the beginning of 2025, the laws and traditions that have shaped the last hundred years of our history have been violently attacked.

  • Protecting Massachusetts Communities Campaign Launched at State House Rally

    ByChristine Dall

    A coalition of immigrant rights organizations, legislators, union leaders, and concerned citizens gathered outside Boston’s Statehouse on Oct. 22 to launch Protecting Massachusetts Communities (PMC) — a campaign to legally defend against the freedom of ICE agents to target, hunt down, arrest and deport the thousands of immigrants and refugees living and working in our communities.

    “Operation Patriot,” the federal government’s escalation of immigrant deportations from Massachusetts last spring netted 1,500 arrests in May alone, mostly in the Boston “sanctuary city” area.”Operation Patriot 2.0”, which began in September, has yielded another 1,500 arrests is ongoing.

    ICE’s growing use of violence in abducting immigrants spreads a constant fear in their homes and work places, not only in metropolitan Boston and its suburbs but also in Worcester, Lowell, Fall River, Framingham and Nantucket. Currently, the operations are reported to be moving into the Merrimack Valley region. Immigrants are afraid to take public transportation, go to work or send their children to school for fear of being trapped in a massive ICE dragnet based on racial profiling, now encouraged by the Supreme Court.

    Contrary to federal claims of targeting only hardcore criminals, up to 80% of those indiscriminately scooped up, detained, stripped of their rights and deported are found to have no criminal record.

  • 2 Ice Planes Land Same Day at Hanscom

    ByToby Sackton

    When Hanscom Airfield was first taken over by Massport, there was immense community opposition in Lexington, Concord, and surrounding towns because people did not want a major second Boston airport, as the infrastructure to support it was non-existent and it also would have changed the character of the Minuteman National Park, nearly an abutter.

    The result was a compromise for a small regional airfield, where jets of more than 60 seats would not be allowed. This agreement, limiting commercial airlines to 60 seats, was codified into law in the act enabling Massport to acquire the airport in 1980. The FAA sued, saying that FAA rules preempted local airport authorities from restricting operations in this way. Massachusetts won.

  • |

    Viola Luzzo, Heather Heyer and Renee Good: Three Ordinary Women Killed Because They Were Like Us

    ByToby Sackton

    An ICE agent in Minneapolis today shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37 year old mother of a six-year old, who lived with her partner in Minneapolis. Renee was a legal observer, and based on videos she stopped her car when other Ice vehicles blocked the street. Than another ICE vehicle, a truck with flashing lights, came up behind her car and Ice officers swarmed out, tried to open her door, terrified her, and as she was trying to leave, one of them pulled a gun and shot her in the face multiple times, killing her. Her wife was left sobbing on the sidewalk.

  • Final Update on Oct 18th No King! ‘It Started Here’ Rally

    ByToby Sackton

    We are just two days away from the Oct. 18 No Kings! rally 10:00 am – 12:00 pm on Lexington’s historic Battle Green, sponsored by Lexington Alarm! and Indivisible LAB. We are part of an historic moment when millions of people throughout the country will demonstrate their resistance to tyranny. There are over 2600 No Kings events, a 45% increase over the number held June 14th. We are expecting a large crowd in Lexington. Check our lexingtonalarm.org/oct-18th-details for important updates including speaker info, parking information and other resources. If you have not registered, RSVP here to get additional email updates.