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🌥️Getting cloudier, with highs in the 60s. Sunset tonight is at 7:30 p.m.

Today we have some thoughts from GBH’s politics reporter Adam Reilly on border czar Tom Homan’s recent comments.

Programming note: I’ll be out of office for the next two weeks, but you’re in excellent hands with my GBH News colleagues.

Four Things to Know

1. More than 100 Harvard faculty and students were at a rally yesterday to express support for the school’s decision not to comply with a list of Trump administration demands. The Trump administration responded to the university’s announcement by saying it could strip the university of its tax-exempt status and withdraw the visas of all international students.  

Archon Fung, a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School, said he does not feel intimidated but does feel anxiety about the future. “I think that I and everyone else on this campus is in for a great amount of pain because of the power of the federal government. I have no illusions about that,” he said. “But I do know that many colleagues, especially colleagues who are earlier on in their career and many students, especially international students, do feel a great chill on what they can say, whether they can come to events like this.”

2. An immigration judge in Louisiana denied Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk’s request to be released on bond, saying she is “both a flight risk and a danger to the community.” Judge Sherron Ashworth based her decision on a Department of State memo that referenced an op-ed co-written by Öztürk in a student newspaper last year, urging Tufts University to divest from Israeli companies. The same memo indicated that Öztürk had not engaged in any misconduct related to antisemitism or terrorism. Öztürk’s attorneys are now focusing on a case in a federal court in Vermont, requesting that the court either transfer her from the Louisiana detention facility to Vermont or release her entirely.

Öztürk’s federal court case in Vermont is focused on the potential constitutional violations of her arrest and detention. Her immigration case involves removal proceedings initiated by the government. “Yesterday was a complete violation of due process and the rule of law. The immigration courts are cowering to the Trump administration’s attempts to silence advocates of Palestinian rights,” said Öztürk’s immigration attorney Marty Rosenbluth.

3. A murder case from 1984 is heading back to court in Springfield. Edward Wright, the defendant, was found guilty in the killing of his friend Penny Anderson in her apartment. There were, however, issues with the case: police noticed that the only piece of physical evidence linking Wright to the scene – a bloody Nike shoe print – was discovered after a break-in at the apartment, which occurred days after the murder and after Wright had already been arrested. Although police documented the break-in, neither Wright nor his lawyers were informed about it until 2021.

Wright has spent decades requesting that his conviction be overturned. “There is bitterness for all the years I’ve lost in prison,” he said, “ but also sweetness in the possibility of freedom.”

4. Don’t have a Real ID yet? Your Massachusetts driver’s license or ID card are Real IDs if they have a star inscribed in a yellow circle in the upper right corner. Without a Real ID, you’ll need a passport to prove your identity when you board a domestic flight or enter a federal building starting on May 7. Ahead of that deadline, the Registry of Motor Vehicles in Massachusetts is taking walk-ins for people who have imminent travel plans. 

Before you go: bring one proof of lawful presence in the U.S., like a passport, birth certificate or naturalization certificate; two documents that prove you are a Massachusetts resident, like a current driver’s license and a tax bill; and proof of your social security number, like your social security card or a W-2 form.

News analysis: Homan’s words to leaders of sanctuary cities

I’m Adam Reilly, a political reporter at GBH News and one half (with GBH’s Morning Edition host Mark Herz) of a weekly debrief focused on how policies crafted by the Trump Administration in Washington are affecting politics and ordinary people here in Massachusetts. Here’s what we’re talking about this week:

Trump’s border czar Tom Homan — who infamously said that he was coming to Boston and bringing hell with him — has issued another threat. This week, a reporter asked Homan if the leaders of so-called sanctuary states and cities should be prosecuted and possibly imprisoned. Homan’s response: “Absolutely, and hold tight on that one, 'cause it’s coming. It’s coming.”

The Trump Administration has previously made it clear that it sees both Boston and Massachusetts as illegally protecting undocumented immigrants, a characterization that both Mayor Michelle Wu and Governor Maura Healey have rejected . So how seriously should we take Homan’s threat?

There’s an argument to be made for not paying too much attention. Homan has an affinity for tough talk that plays well with the conservative base but doesn’t necessarily become reality. It’s also worth noting that Homan gave that answer in response to a very leading question from a reporter. Also, President Trump himself seems more interested in withholding federal funding from so-called sanctuary jurisdictions than in prosecuting the people who lead them.

All that said, we’re living in unusual times. And one of the Republicans who grilled Mayor Wu and other Democratic mayors at a congressional hearing in Washington last month said, at that time, that she would suggest the mayors be prosecuted by the Department of Justice, so this isn’t a new idea. If the Department of Justice announced the prosecution of one or more Democratic elected officials for allegedly illegal immigration practices tomorrow, it would be a dramatic development, but it wouldn’t be a shock. Right now, the unprecedented is the norm.

You can listen live at on 89.7 FM 8:30 a.m. every Friday or online at GBHNews.org .