The immigration debate raging around the country is taking root in Massachusetts with the vitriol and accusations from both sides feeding a frenzy that we’re being overrun both by illegal immigrants and federal enforcement officers rounding up the unwanted masses.

The debate, for the longest time, was confined to border states and, with the exception of Howie Carr, was more of a pedantic exercise in the Bay State because of the blueishness of the electorate and the climate that’s not particularly inviting to those from warm weather countries.

Data has shown that while immigrants comprise about 14.5 percent of the state’s total population, the number of illegal immigrants is estimated to be less than 1.8 percent, about half the national average. But, increasingly, that tiny number is becoming the source of outsized debate in the Bay State.

Most elected officials in Massachusetts are doubling down on their community’s standing as a so-called “sanctuary city” in spite of – or maybe because of – Attorney General Jeff Session’s threat to pull funding from any place where local law enforcement does not abide by federal immigration laws.

Bristol Sheriff Thomas Hodgson, who has offered inmates from his jail to help build President Trump’s proposed wall on the Mexican border, told a congressional committee he thinks elected leaders of “sanctuary cities” should be arrested.

“Issue arrest warrants and charge these officials who pledge to violate federal law by harboring and concealing illegals,” Hodgson urged lawmakers. “Sanctuary cities will start to fade if their leaders start running into legal trouble.”

Not that Hodgson is too concerned, but that stance brought a ringing condemnation from Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone, who has been among the most vocal in declaring the sanctity of sanctuary cities.

“Officials like Hodgson should feel free to keep blowing hot air,” Curtatone wrote on his Facebook page. “By all means, expose yourself as the sort of jack-booted thug who wants to jail your political opponents for made-up offenses.”

Curtatone added an offer: “Come and get me.”

While that debate is ongoing between elected officials, another emotional flare-up erupted when state Rep. Michelle DuBois of Brockton posted a message on her Facebook page, apparently since removed, warning illegal immigrants of a rumored raid by federal immigration authorities.

“If you are undocumented, don’t go out on the street,” said the message. “If there is a knock on the door of your house and you don’t know who it is, don’t open the door. I ask you to be careful.”

The post also triggered threatening and abusive backlash from around the country as well as anger from Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials who said the warning put officers in danger.

“Any person who actively incites panic or fear of law enforcement is doing a disservice to the community, endangering public safety and the very people they claim to support and represent,” ICE spokesman Shawn Neudauer told the Boston Herald.

Even though DuBois removed her post, she was steadfast in defending her comments and her right to put up the statements. She admitted in an email to The Enterprise  that the warning was based solely on hearsay but, she said, the vitriolic response from around the country proved her point.

“I am an elected state representative and the response to one Facebook post has caused people from across the nation to inundate my Facebook page with some pretty intimidating, ugly, and threatening posts,” DuBois wrote in the email. “If this is what happens to an elected representative, what must be happening to immigrants every day in our nation, both documented and not documented? … There are many people in Brockton (documented and not) as well as people across this nation who are terrified.”

–JACK SULLIVAN

BEACON HILL

Hillary Chabot applauds Treasurer Deb Goldberg for fighting back against possible moves to strip her office of control of the state’s new marijuana industry. (Boston Herald)

Deborah Hughes of Brookview House in Dorchester says the majority of the state’s shelter population is families. She calls it the invisible homelessness. (CommonWealth)

MUNICIPAL MATTERS

Preservation groups in Worcester are scrambling to find a way to prevent the Notre Dame des Canadiens church from being demolished. (Telegram & Gazette)

The Fall River City Council effectively killed Mayor Jasiel Correia’s proposal to create a city economic development agency and sever ties with the private nonprofit business organization that contracts with the city to perform the administrative duties. (Herald News)

WASHINGTON/NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL

President Trump signs an executive order to begin dismantling significant climate-change policy put in place by President Obama, drawing harsh criticism from environmentalists. (Boston Globe)

If Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan push through major tax cuts — not tax reform that gets rid of loopholes and restructures the system — they would explode the deficit, writes Globe data cruncher Evan Horowitz.

Congress sent Trump legislation overturning sweeping internet privacy protections passed just last year. (Washington Post) If you want to know what US Rep. Michael Capuano really thinks of the Republican effort to repeal protections that kept internet service providers from gathering up and selling your browsing habits and other information, watch this. (We also learn the congressman recently ordered underwear online — though he never answers the crucial boxers or briefs question.) (YouTube)

David French, a contributor to the conservative National Review, is joining Democrats call for US Rep. Devin Nunes to step down as the chairman in the House Intelligence Committee, saying he is compromised in the probe of ties between Russia and Trump associates.

A Herald editorial jabs Sen. Elizabeth Warren for what it says is her new willingness to tout the idea of single-payer health care.

Britain makes Brexit official. (Time)

ELECTIONS

Joe Battenfeld says Sen. Elizabeth Warren is tuning up for a potential 2020 presidential bid with her sudden media availability — and says some more tuning will be needed before she’s ready for prime time. (Boston Herald)

Tom Perez, the new chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is cleaning house by asking for the resignation of all staff at the party committee, but liberal New Hampshire radio host Arnie Arnesen questions whether that’s the medicine that’s needed. (Boston Herald)

BUSINESS/ECONOMY

Population growth is slowing in Greater Boston — largely because of the high cost of housing, say experts — and the region would have seen a net loss in population since 2015 if not for the inflow of immigrants. (Boston Globe)

The US arm of athletic shoe maker Asics is looking to open a product design and creation studio near South Station. (Boston Globe)

Republicans have sent a bill to President Trump repealing Obama administration privacy regulations and open the door for internet providers to sell user browsing information. (U.S. News & World Report)

EDUCATION

Parents of gifted children say the state’s public schools don’t do enough to tailor programs to their needs, so they are often bored in school. (Boston Herald)

HEALTH/HEALTH CARE

Brockton-based In Good Health, a licensed medical marijuana dispensary, will begin home delivery of medicinal pot all around the state beginning next week. (The Enterprise)

Michael Botticelli, who served as White House drug czar under President Obama, will direct the new addiction center at Boston Medical Center being launched with a $25 million donation from billionaire investor John Grayken. (Boston Globe)

Partners HealthCare, GE, and Blue Cross Blue Shield are among the backers of a new nonprofit called Rize Massachusetts that is hoping to raise $50 million over the next three years to fight opioid addiction. (WBUR)

Cambridge-based Sanofi Genzyme won FDA approval of a new eczema drug that the company president says could become its best-selling product. Initial list price: $37,000 a year. (Boston Globe)

Norfolk County residents have the state’s best chances for long, healthy lives but ceded the top spot as Massachusetts’ healthiest county to Nantucket, according to a nationwide study. (Patriot Ledger)

TRANSPORTATION

Riders push back against a Worcester Regional Transit Authority plan to raise fares and cut late-night service to cover a $907,000 deficit caused primarily by the loss of state operating funds. (Telegram & Gazette)

Keller@Large says former gubernatorial candidate Christy Mihos, who died of cancer over the weekend in Florida, may have had personal problems in his latter years but should be remembered for blowing the whistle on Big Dig cost overruns when no one wanted to speak ill of the massive project.

ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT

Westinghouse Electric Company, which once powered the nuclear energy sector, filed for bankruptcy, mostly from overwhelming losses connected to several nuclear construction problems in the South which are now in doubt. (New York Times)

CRIMINAL JUSTICE/COURTS

Dan Kennedy says Democrats should filibuster the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court but not because Gorsuch isn’t qualified — he received the endorsement of the American Bar Association — but to prove a point about the seat being stolen from Barack Obama. (Media Nation)

Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett is blocking an investigation into how police handled the search for a missing teen who was subsequently found decapitated. Blodgett said the probe could hamper his prosecution of a 16-year-old suspect in the slaying. (Eagle-Tribune)

MEDIA

The White House Correspondents Association dinner is going to be very different this year. President Trump already said he wouldn’t be attending, and now the event is being boycotted by all White House workers. (Politico)

Wall Street Journal staffers sign a letter criticizing the control white men have over the newsroom. (Business Insider)

Gannett slashes staff at two Tennessee newspapers it purchased a year ago. (Nashville Scene)

The Democracy Fund, a nonprofit set up by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, announced more than $12 million in grants to a variety of nonprofit journalism organizations. (The Center for Public Integrity)