Yes, immigration is a flash point in Boston's mayoral race. A debate confirmed it

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Good Monday morning, everyone.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu made nationwide headlines earlier this year with a defiant appearance before a U.S. House committee probing the city's immigration policies, which bar local cops from cooperating with the feds in civil matters.
Wu's main challenger in this year's race for City Hall, philanthropist Josh Kraft, in a rare instance of agreement in what's become an increasingly thorny campaign, said he was onside with that approach.
So far, so good, right? Maybe not.
Kraft, the son of billionaire New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, got some serious pushback during a debate in Dorchester last week after he told a packed house at Prince Hall that he's 'completely against President Trump's mass deportation plans,' and 'will stand with our immigrant community wholeheartedly, no matter who is in the White House.'
'I think it's absolutely abhorrent that federal agents could walk into your place of work, your house of worship or your children's schools and remove you, even if you have zero connection to violent crime,' Kraft said, according to The Boston Herald.
The response prompted some in the crowd to stand up and hurl jeers in Kraft's direction, the Herald reported. In turn, an organizer had to take the stage to settle things down.
The pump got primed by a question from the debate's moderator, Yawu Miller of Flipside News, the newspaper reported.
'In today's political climate, immigrant communities are increasingly under threat. How would you defend these communities and push back against harmful actions by ICE or a hostile federal administration,' Miller asked, according to the Herald.
He had to stop to say 'excuse me' as the majority-Black crowd reacted to his question, the newspaper reported.
'What concrete strategies would you implement to ensure the safety and protection of all residents in Boston, regardless of immigration status?' he continued.
Domingos DaRosa, another mayoral aspirant, offered a more conciliatory answer, saying the city had to look after the interests of immigrants and native-born Bostonians alike.
Wu, meanwhile, defended the city's immigration policies.
'In Boston, 29% of our residents are immigrants who were born in a different country,' Wu said, according to the Herald. 'We, as a city, have a responsibility to make sure that everyone is getting what they need. I just want to say in this room and in every room, that part of the strategy of those who are trying to make us turn against each other and point fingers is to say there's not enough.'
Robert Cappucci, who's also seeking the city's top spot, said he'd work with the Trump administration.
'There are a lot of people very upset in terms of who got here legitimately, who got to live here illegitimately, and again, you go back to love God and love thy neighbor,' Cappucci said, according to The Herald. 'My job would be to try to settle this argument.'
The relative comity between Kraft and Wu on the flashpoint issue was a rare oasis of calm in a week in which the two candidates warred over Kraft's Boston bona fides and a flood of dark money into the race.
Wu accused Kraft of trying to buy the race after reports surfaced that he planned to inject $2 million of his own money into the campaign, a move that effectively would erase the incumbent mayor's cash advantage.
It also was revealed that a pro-Kraft super PAC had dropped more than $1.4 million on attack ads bolstering his candidacy.
'Most Bostonians don't have a billionaire father to buy them a condo so they can move in to run for an office they've never voted for, live in a ward they don't know and spend millions from their family wealth and connections to try to buy the election,' the Democratic incumbent said in a statement released through her campaign.
Kraft's campaign fired back.
'Josh Kraft purchased his home with his own money. He has voted in multiple elections as a Boston resident. And he has worked in and around the neighborhoods of Boston for 35 years ― long before Michelle Wu came to Harvard by way of one of the wealthiest suburbs of Chicago,' the campaign said in a statement to MassLive. 'She would rather resort to personal attacks ... than address her record of failures as mayor of Boston - from housing to the Boston Public Schools, from managing the budget to managing her own personnel problems inside City Hall.'
One veteran observer put the current tensions at 5 out of a possible 10. But it's still only June, and there's nowhere to go but up.
U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-8th District, is officially in the running to become the next top Democrat on the powerful House Oversight Committee.
That's the one that Boston Mayor Michelle Wu appeared before earlier this year in a headline-grabbing appearance over the city's immigration policies.
Lynch, of South Boston, had been unofficially minding the store after U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly, of Virginia, who had been the panel's ranking Democrat, announced in late April that he was stepping aside to deal with a recurrence of cancer.
Connolly, 75, lost that fight earlier this month, succumbing to the esophageal cancer he had been diagnosed with last November.
Connolly's passing opens up what is essentially a generational fight for the top spot on the Oversight Committee, with Lynch, 70, and U.S. Rep. Kwesi Mfume, 76, of Maryland, at the older end of the leadership contest.
U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia, 47, of California, and Jasmine Crockett, 44, of Texas, and a frequent inquisitor of President Donald Trump, are leading the youth brigade, according to Axios.
Lynch made his pitch in a three-page 'Dear Colleague' letter his office shared last week. It stressed his hardscrabble roots in Southie, his background in labor and his involvement in every big committee probe of the last quarter-century.
'I will also always welcome regular input from our caucus as we continue to prepare an investigative oversight record that will be primed and ready for a Democratic majority to hold President Trump fully accountable,' Lynch wrote.
A vote on the post is set for June 24, according to Axios.
The rent, in case you were wondering, is still too darn high.
A single person needs to earn $127,000 to rent an apartment in Greater Boston, making it the third-most expensive metro area in the nation, according to an analysis by Zillow.
The top two markets were San Jose, California ($137K) and New York City ($145K), according to the analysis. The three most affordable markets were Buffalo, New York ($55K), Oklahoma City, Oklahoma ($56K) and Louisville, Kentucky ($57K).
The analysis found that renters need to make six figures to 'comfortably' afford rent in eight major markets across the country. That's up from four markets just five years ago.
Since April 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rent for a typical U.S. apartment soared by 28.7% to $1,858 − which would, like, get you a couch, in the Seaport.
Rent for a single-family home nationwide increased by an eye-watering 42.9% to $2,256, or a garage in Wellesley, probably.
The median household income, at the same time, has only risen by 22.5% to around $82,000, vividly reminding people, in case they needed it, that wages haven't kept up with skyrocketing housing costs.
Another reminder from Zillow: Boston remains one of the handful of U.S. cities where renters are on the hook for broker fees ― usually the equivalent of a month's rent — that come on top of security deposits and advance payments. And that also drives up costs.
Lawmakers on Beacon Hill are weighing competing plans to spike them. But success is, by no means, assured.
'The greatness of America, the greatness of Harvard is reflected in the fact that someone like me could be invited to speak to you.'
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With the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill just a couple of weeks away on June 17, Massachusetts Secretary of State Bill Galvin holds a briefing this Tuesday morning on events celebrating the big day.
He'll be joined at the 10 a.m. news conference at the battlefield site at 43 Monument Square in Charlestown by Simone Monteleone, who's the acting superintendent for the National Parks of Boston, his office said in a statement.
Galvin, in case you were wondering, is the chair of the Massachusetts Historical Commission, in addition to serving as chief overseer of the state's elections.
Singer Halsey brings her 2025 tour to the XFinity Center in scenic Mansfield at 7 p.m. Wednesday. (tickets and more info here). From the film 'Ballerina,' here's the latest single 'Hand That Feeds.' Amy Lee, of Evanescence, also guests.
There's no doubt that every shooting death is a tragedy, and it leaves survivors with mental and physical scars that last a lifetime.
But new research shows that, when it comes to the lasting mental trauma of these explosions of violence, not all shootings are created equal.
In April, research published by the journal Nature Mental Health found that people who survive 'commonplace' gun violence, such as robberies or domestic violence, had reported longer-term mental health symptoms than people who had survived mass shootings, according to The Trace, a publication that tracks gun violence nationwide.
Here's the germane bit:
''What surprised us a bit was that people who experienced non-mass shooting gun violence were more likely to have their symptoms last a year or longer,' said Jillian Peterson, executive director of the Violence Prevention Project Research Center at Hamline University in Minnesota and the study's lead author.'
'A mass shooting — defined in the study as four or more people shot in a single incident — is a shared experience that prompts public attention and communal social support, said the study's coauthor, David Pyrooz, a sociology professor and criminologist at the University of Colorado's Institute for Behavioral Science. 'And that helps to resolve some of the distress that comes from it.'"
''When we had the King Soopers shooting, there was 'Boulder Strong,' donations, and an outpouring of support from the community,' he said, referring to the 2021 mass shooting. 'But when there is a robbery with a firearm, you don't get that same sort of outpouring.''
'The largest discrepancy was in long-term post-traumatic stress symptoms. Among non-mass shooting survivors, 60% of those threatened with a gun, 65% of people who were shot at but not hit, and 44% of those who were hit reported long-term PTSD.'
'By comparison, long-term PTSD among people who experienced mass shootings ranged between 20 and 30%, depending on the type of exposure. The researchers surveyed a nationally representative sample of 10,000 adults.'
'Survivors of isolated incidents are often specifically targeted, which can hinder recovery. And the violation of safety and trust inherent in violence by someone you know can lead to more severe PTSD than mass shootings, said Mayer Bellehsen, a clinical psychologist at Northwell Health in New York.'
That's it for today. As always, tips, comments and questions can be sent to [e-mail]. Have a good week, friends.
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Read the original article on MassLive.