UPDATE: On January 5, 2017, the ACLU of Massachusetts submitted a public records request to the Bristol County Sheriff's Department asking for documents to shed light on his proposal to have Massachusetts inmates help build a border wall. Click here to view the request.


Bristol County Sheriff Hodgson’s proposal to use the labor of the men and women in his custody to build a border wall is perverse, inhumane and likely unconstitutional. It has nothing to do with helping people in Massachusetts, and we hope his constituents join us in demanding a retraction. 

Not only is Sheriff Hodgson willing to get involved with Trump’s racially discriminatory plan to build a wall along the US-Mexico border, he is proposing to use modern-day slave labor to do it. The men and women incarcerated at the Bristol County House of Corrections are mostly poor people and people of color. The idea of sending them to build a wall to keep out other people of color who are fleeing violence or devastating poverty is abhorrent.

If Sheriff Hodgson follows through on this shameful plan, the ACLU of Massachusetts is prepared to use every tool in our toolbox, including litigation, to stop him. 

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