“We are here to let them know that we are not going to stop,” said Isabel Lopez of the Massachusetts Community Action Network, as dozens stood behind her on the Grand Staircase holding signs and battery-powered tea lights. “We are here to deliver a message to them that we are mourning but we also are taking action.”

After singing, praying and chanting at the staircase, the group delivered to lawmakers letters – signed by “Immigrants and immigrant families in Massachusetts” and each with a black mourning ribbon affixed to it — expressing “heartbreak, our tremendous disappointment in our elected officials and outrage at the failure of Speaker Robert DeLeo and conference committee members (Rep.) Jeffrey Sanchez and (Sen.) Karen Spilka to protect immigrant families.”

The Senate-backed budget rider would have prohibited local law enforcement from entering collaboration agreements with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as 287(g) agreements, and generally prevented police from inquiring into people’s immigration status. It was a pared-back version of standalone legislation known as the Safe Communities Act.

Read more here