NEW ENGLAND'S GOD FOREVER REIGNS:

The morning after dozens of migrants arrived unannounced last month on Martha's Vineyard, immigration lawyer Rachel M. Self raced to the island from a citizenship hearing in Lawrence. She was in emergency-response mode. While driving, she tuned into a Zoom conference with fellow immigration lawyers to discuss strategy. From Cape Cod, she hitched a ride on a newspaper delivery boat to get to the Vineyard, and then by noon she had hailed a taxi to get to the Edgartown church where the migrants had spent the night.

"It never even occurred to me not to show up at the church as quickly as I could," said Self, 44, who happens to live in Edgartown. "It was in my backyard. It was in my area of expertise. It was a language that I spoke, it was something I was very familiar with."

Once at St. Andrews Episcopal Church, Self, who learned Spanish as an exchange student, spent nearly eight hours scanning immigration documents using her cellphone, laptop, and a WiFi hotspot. As other volunteer lawyers made their way to the island, they created spreadsheets listing each migrant, their next immigration appointment, their intended destination, and immediate medical needs. Within days, each migrant had been paired with a lawyer who would represent them for free.

The scramble in those early days -- and the continued advocacy since then -- exhibited, once again, the force of a spirited team of Massachusetts immigration lawyers, far from the southern border but able to flex their clout and power in the name of their advocacy. Their work put Massachusetts on the national map when it came to fighting Trump immigration policies and, now, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' controversial relocation program.

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