BOSTON — Massachusetts is now spending 60% more taxpayer money on lawyers for illegal immigrants than it was a year ago.

Lawmakers approved the increase this week as part of the state's $63.4 billion Fiscal Year 2027 budget. Under line item 4003-0124, the Immigration Legal Assistance Fund — administered by the state Office of Refugees and Immigrants — will receive $8 million in FY27, up from $5 million in the fiscal year that just ended.

That's a 60% raise in twelve months.

The Immigration Legal Assistance Fund pays for legal defense in deportation proceedings — the immigration equivalent of a public defender for people facing removal from the country. It is administered by the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA), which won the state contract to run the program. MIRA has used the money to hire dozens of full-time immigration attorneys who work at legal-aid organizations across the state.

Access to the program is means-tested and criminal-conduct-restricted. Recipients must be at or below 125% of the federal poverty line, and, according to program guidelines cited by public reporting, must have no criminal charges pending. The lawyers appear on behalf of individuals in immigration court — arguing against deportation, filing asylum applications, and challenging Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) actions.

Both chambers voted the conference committee report through this week. Governor Maura Healey has until July 11 to sign, veto, or amend individual sections of the budget.

The Immigration Legal Assistance Fund was created in the FY26 state budget that Healey signed on July 4, 2025 — the first time Massachusetts had appropriated dedicated state money for immigrant legal defense. The initial appropriation was $5 million.

In April 2026, lawmakers added another $1 million through a Fair Share supplemental budget, bringing the FY26 total to $6 million.

Now, with the FY27 budget, the fund reaches $8 million — a 60% increase over its original starting number in twelve months.

Advocates, including MIRA itself, had lobbied for a $15 million figure — triple the FY26 baseline. That number was not adopted. But the trajectory the fund is on now suggests the $15 million figure remains an active target for FY28.

Massachusetts' FY27 budget totals $63.4 billion — up from $60.9 billion the year before. Even as the top-line grew, budget negotiators told a number of other agencies and programs to hold steady or take cuts.

The Immigration Legal Assistance Fund's 60% year-over-year raise stands out. So does the political context: the fund's growth has come as Governor Healey has repeatedly clashed publicly with ICE, issued statewide guidance for schools and hospitals on refusing ICE cooperation, and signed executive orders restricting state facilities from serving as ICE staging areas.

Critics on Beacon Hill say the trajectory of the fund raises fair questions about state spending priorities — questions that have been increasingly hard to avoid as other state services face flat or declining appropriations.