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QUINCY – A packed ballroom at Bay Pointe Restaurant in Quincy is home to the official headquarters of the Massachusetts campaign to re-elect Donald Trump. State campaign chairman and arguable former Bristol County sheriff Tom Hodgson headlined the event.
When asked if there was a single factor at the root of the race, Hodgson answered without hesitation that immigration was at the forefront of voters’ minds.
Hodgson, who lost re-election in 2022 after 25 years in power, has a long history of questionable immigration-related statements and moves.
In 2017, he recommended the arrest of “sanctuary city” leaders at a congressional hearing, according to a WCVB report. “Sanctuary City” is a vague term for communities that do not fully cooperate with federal immigration enforcement agencies.
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Hodgson told the Patriot Ledger that he remembered his precise words on that occasion, but that he maintained his previous position. He said the presence of undocumented immigrants is at the root of what he sees as the main turmoil facing the country, adding national security. , economics, fitness, and education.
In May 2020, Hodgson refiled a complaint following the hospitalization of three Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees held at the Bristol County Correctional Center. The men reportedly showed symptoms of COVID, and when guards tried to take them to the medical wing, they resisted for fear of quarantine and exposure to the virus, according to a 2020 report by the Attorney General’s Office. era, Maura Healey.
The confrontation escalated to the point where a paramilitary-style tactical reaction team went through Hodgson and deployed armed with insurrection gear, dogs, and pepper spray. One inmate had to undergo chest compressions again, according to the report.
Hodgson inmates attacked the guards and sparked a riot.
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The report accuses Hodgson of harshly treating detainees for a long time and cites his offer to send detainees into his custody to “gang work” on Trump’s border wall. In May 2021, the Department of Homeland Security, led by new Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, terminated its contract with the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office.
On the way to the crusade, Hodgson said Trump “is all about the rule of law. “He said gang members and terrorists crossing the border poison communities and worsen their quality of life. “They’re criminals,” Hodgson said.
Chester Tam lived on Sea Street in Quincy for about ten years before moving to Dartmouth. Tam designed the crusade and is running it on social and virtual media, email and communications crusades.
Tam said he had long considered himself apolitical. But in 2020, he lost his job as a computer scientist at Mass General Brigham after refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Tam said he was working remotely 100 percent of the hour he fired.
With a wife and three children, Tam now finds himself with no income. His unemployment claim was rejected by the state. ” I spent nine years in this business,” he said.
Unemployed and looking for work, Tam said he used Twitter to vent his frustrations. Since then, he has attracted 11,000 fans by telling the stories of other people like him. He said he’s giving voice to a forgotten group: those fired for refusing the vaccine.
Like Hodgson, Tam has also spoken of immigration as a vital explanation for why he supports Trump. Born in the United States, Tam is the son of Chinese immigrants who he believes moved here in search of a better life, but they did so legally. His wife, from the Philippines, has family members who go through the lengthy bureaucratic process of immigration to the United States.
Tam said he believed undocumented immigrants in the U. S. were pushing his wife’s family members to the back of the line.
When asked if he was involved in Trump’s incendiary rhetoric about immigrants, Tam replied that Trump “probably doesn’t use the most productive words sometimes. At the end of the day, he’s getting his message across. “
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This article appeared in The Patriot Ledger: MA Primary Election: Trump Campaign Rallies in Quincy on Super Tuesday
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