Jay GonzalezJay Gonzalez, a Needham Democrat, announced he will run for governor next year. Admirably, he has started his campaign by emphasizing diversity and sanctuary, including support for the Safe Communities Act.

From his recent interview with the Needham Times:

“I’m convinced that fear about different people, differences among people, are usually a function of a lack of exposure to different people,” Gonzalez said when asked about some people’s apprehension regarding immigrants and refugees from the Middle East.

For Gonzalez, the issue of immigration is a clear-cut one and a personal one. His mother traveled abroad and met his father in Spain, and the couple married and returned to the United States together.

Gonzalez’s father was 19 years old at that time and barely knew any English, and he worked hard and provided a life of opportunity to his family, Gonzalez said.

“When it comes to immigration in particular, this is who we are and one of the things that makes us so different from any other country on Earth,” Gonzalez said. “We literally are a nation of immigrants. Some go back a few generations, but there are many who are first-generation today.”

In fact, as residents across the nation debate whether or not to have sanctuary cities — cities in which law enforcement are instructed not to assist federal immigration officials on undocumented immigrant crackdowns — Gonzalez wants to see Massachusetts become a “sanctuary state.”

“The very first piece of legislation I supported as a candidate is called the Safe Communities Act, which would effectively make the state a sanctuary state,” Gonzalez noted. “It effectively says that state and local law enforcement resources may only be used to enforce state and local laws and should be focused on keeping our communities safe and not doing the work of federal immigration officials to enforce federal immigration laws to do Donald Trump’s bidding.”

Read the full article here:
Jay Gonzalez: ‘Massachusetts problems need real leadership’

And for more background on the campaign, visit the Jay Gonzalez website.