August 15, 2025 By Lily Barrett

State budget includes $5 million for immigration legal services

A key piece of the state budget signed this summer flew under the radar: a new program to boost legal services for low-income immigrant families.

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Dropped in yesterday to the amazing @ConcordMuseum to check out the permanent exhibits. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s library, intact. Henry David Thoreau’s writing desk. (Mind if I sit here for a moment to compose this post? Why, yes, we do!) Hour-by-hour dashboard depicting each nearby town’s participation in the events of April 19, 1775. Susan Foster Jones, Director of Education and Visitor Experience; @MatthewBoger, Member, Museum Board of Governors; and Amanda Lahikainen, Executive Director, walked me through one of the best small museums in the entire country.

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Open post by senatormikebarrett with ID 18045705263834514

Dropped in yesterday to the amazing @ConcordMuseum to check out the permanent exhibits. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s library, intact. Henry David Thoreau’s writing desk. (Mind if I sit here for a moment to compose this post? Why, yes, we do!) Hour-by-hour dashboard depicting each nearby town’s participation in the events of April 19, 1775. Susan Foster Jones, Director of Education and Visitor Experience; @MatthewBoger, Member, Museum Board of Governors; and Amanda Lahikainen, Executive Director, walked me through one of the best small museums in the entire country.

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Last night in Lincoln, Kathy Madison of Lincoln Witness presented the hair-raising documentary ICE Air to a crowd impressed by the journalism but horrified about the revelations: ICE deportation flights crisscrossing the U.S. to keep immigrants in constant transit and near-constant hiding, away from their families and the lawyers responsible for helping them. To its indelible discredit, nearby Hanscom Airport is a major node in ICE’s network.

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Open post by senatormikebarrett with ID 17910364491545059

Last night in Lincoln, Kathy Madison of Lincoln Witness presented the hair-raising documentary ICE Air to a crowd impressed by the journalism but horrified about the revelations: ICE deportation flights crisscrossing the U.S. to keep immigrants in constant transit and near-constant hiding, away from their families and the lawyers responsible for helping them. To its indelible discredit, nearby Hanscom Airport is a major node in ICE’s network.

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The report comes at a critical moment for the future of the Gas System Enhancement Program, or GSEP. Lawmakers created the program in 2014 to improve public safety and reduce planet-warming emissions from leaks. Yet even as spending has ballooned to roughly $800 million in 2024, paid for by customers’ monthly bills, opponents say it has not delivered on its promised benefits.

Now, state lawmakers are negotiating a sweeping energy bill that could determine the fate of the program. The Senate has sought to phase out GSEP, a move that Senator Michael Barrett said could save customers as much as $1.46 billion over the next 10 years.

“We’ve paid too much, but at least we wanted to believe that we were safer,” Barrett said. “Now it turns out that we’ve paid too much, and we did not make our people any safer than they would have been.”

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The report comes at a critical moment for the future of the Gas System Enhancement Program, or GSEP. Lawmakers created the program in 2014 to improve public safety and reduce planet-warming emissions from leaks. Yet even as spending has ballooned to roughly $800 million in 2024, paid for by customers’ monthly bills, opponents say it has not delivered on its promised benefits.Now, state lawmakers are negotiating a sweeping energy bill that could determine the fate of the program. The Senate has sought to phase out GSEP, a move that Senator Michael Barrett said could save customers as much as $1.46 billion over the next 10 years. “We’ve paid too much, but at least we wanted to believe that we were safer,” Barrett said. “Now it turns out that we’ve paid too much, and we did not make our people any safer than they would have been.”

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State budget includes $5 million for immigration legal services

senatormikebarrett

Senator Mike Barrett

Mike Barrett

State Senator | Democrat | 3rd Middlesex District MA

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