by Peter Lucas

At first, I thought it was a eureka moment.

Here was progressive Gov. Maura Healey saying good things about President Donald Trump, a man she has fiercely criticized and sued over immigration and other policy initiatives for years.

To the shock of many, she said last week, “I told President Biden that he needed to act on the border and shut it down two years ago, three years ago. I think that some of what Donald Trump has done on the border makes a lot of sense, right?

“I won’t get into specifics, but the general move and recognition that there needed to be more control brought to the border is absolutely correct. And certain things have been done that make a lot of sense.”

“Border crossings have stopped,” she said, and that was a good thing, even though she filed a dozen immigration lawsuits against Trump when she was attorney general and Trump was in his first term as president.

One of those lawsuits back in 2019 was over Trump’s declaration of a national emergency allowing him to redirect federal funds toward building the border wall.

That legal jihad against Trump has been picked up by Attorney General Andrea Campbell, Healey’s successor as the state’s “chief law enforcement officer,” who already has filed more than a dozen lawsuits against Trump.

Healey’s Trump remarks came as such a shock that it was like astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, declaring “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” as he exited Apollo 11 back in 1969.

In Healey’s case, it would be “That’s one small step for me, one giant leap for Massachusetts.”

That might have led to Trump being more merciful when it comes to cutting federal funds previously earmarked for Massachusetts, an anti-Trump state with an anti-Trump governor.

But, alas, it is not to be. Healey has not changed vis a vis Trump, come hell or high water, which is good news for her progressive supporters who are on the lookout for anyone going wobbly on attacking Trump.

“I am not softening toward him,” she said firmly during an interview.

In fact, when it comes to ICE scooping illegal immigrants off the street or smashing car windows and dragging them from vehicles, she is harder on Trump than ever.

She called gun-toting Homeland Security Chief Kristi Noem, who oversees ICE, “an idiot.” Healey is even less flattering talking about border czar Tom Homan.

“I’ll give him (Trump) credit where credit is due,” she said of Trump’s success in shutting down the border.

“But he is scaring the hell out of everybody,” by having masked ICE agents scooping up immigrants, illegal and otherwise, off the streets. “There is no need for it.”

“It is harmful and disturbing, and it is spreading fear in our communities,” Healey said.

These immigrants, in her view, are hardworking people employed in nursing homes, cleaning houses, mowing lawns and working in landscaping and in other jobs while learning English and seeking to become citizens.

While she has no problem with ICE going after illegal immigrant murderers, rapists, child sex traffickers, drug dealers and gangbangers, she is concerned with ICE trampling over the due process rights of average working immigrants and their families, whether they are legal or not.

“I’ve got some real concerns about that,” Healey said.

Healey suggested that a more humane and civilized approach in the detaining or arrest of illegal immigrants, who have committed no serious crime, might be to work through the district attorneys of the state to make sure they were granted due process.

Masked, armed and civilian-dressed ICE agents “pulling people off the streets is no way to go about things,” she said.

The bottom line is that Elon Musk will land a man on Mars before Healey takes one small step, let alone a leap, to mellow towards Trump.

Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com. He is also Co-Host of the Boston Bros podcast, which appears weekly here on InsideLowell, with former Lowell Sun Editor Jim Campanini