In a packed, nearly five-hour meeting Tuesday, the Plymouth Select Board unanimously voted to adopt the police department’s immigration enforcement policy, designed in 2017 by Police Chief Dana Flynn. The policy will now regulate how all employees under the Select Board can interact with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Select Board Member Kevin Canty proposed a revised version of the police department’s policy for the Select Board to adopt, but Flynn raised concerns that having two similar but different policies in government could confuse the public and his officers. After hours of discussion, Flynn and the Board agreed that both parties adopting the same, unrevised policy—which prohibits employees from providing information about individuals to ICE unless ICE presents a warrant for that information—would assuage the fears of residents worried that Plymouth is cooperating with ICE.
Both Flynn’s and Canty’s policies did not instruct employees to obstruct ICE’s activities or violate any laws that mandate cooperation with federal agencies.
“We can’t stop [ICE officers] from coming here and acting the way they’re acting,” Canty said, “but we could do this, and we did. I’m glad we were able to reach a compromise that works for all of the people in our realm to go forward on this issue together.”
Canty proposed this policy as a response to increased ICE activity in town in 2025, which some members of the public said has caused immigrants to fear going to work or taking their children to school. The 2024 census found that 6.4% of Plymouth’s population is foreign-born.
ICE typically notifies the police department when they come to Plymouth, and they did so at least four times in 2025. But they did not give prior notification when officers visited in May, then arrested one individual and threatened to arrest a citizen who was recording.
Canty’s policy was largely identical to the police department’s, but it provided specific examples of when Town employees were allowed to provide information to ICE. It also said that police could intervene to prevent “terroristic” activity where the original policy said “subversive,” which Canty felt was too vague.
When it became apparent that other Select Board Members would not vote for his policy for fear of interfering with police activity or causing confusion, Canty made a new motion to adopt Flynn’s policy, saying that it would further the united goal of the Board and police department to improve public understanding of the department’s relationship with ICE.
Flynn said in the meeting that he has encountered misinformation that his department assists in immigration enforcement, though a 2017 Massachusetts law prohibits state and local police from doing so. According to his policy, Plymouth police officers only assist ICE in investigations if they suspect the individual has committed a violent felony, and they never request or keep track of immigration status.
“We focus on crime, not immigration,” Flynn said.
Just as Plymouth police are not typically required by law to share an individual’s information with ICE, ICE does not have to share details of its operations in Plymouth. If ICE detains someone without notifying the police department, he said his officers might waste time and resources searching for a missing person who is in ICE custody. So Flynn wants to maintain a relationship with ICE that encourages its officers to keep his department in the loop.
Most of the members of the public in attendance supported Canty’s policy, though some said that devoting a meeting to the topic of immigration enforcement was unnecessary and politically motivated. Several Select Board members disagreed with those assertions saying that the discussion and public comment was valuable.
“This was a great example of a collaborative process,” Select Board Member Deborah Iaquinto said. “We came up with a reasonable solution, and we’re all on the same team.”
Flynn has the exclusive right to revise police department policy, so in the Board’s motion they requested that Flynn notify them if he does revise the immigration policy. The Board also plans to review their new policy annually.
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