NORTHAMPTON — State legislators representing Hampshire and Franklin counties signaled that they were prepared to defend protections for immigrants, the environment and transgender people in Massachusetts as the new federal administration under President Donald Trump moves to limit or scrap them.

State Sen. Jo Comerford, along with Reps. Lindsay Sabadosa, Mindy Domb and Natalie Blais appeared in Northampton on Monday for the 13th annual Tikkun Olam Legislative Luncheon held at Congregation B’nai Israel, fielding questions from congregation members about their priorities for the new legislative session. The event was organized by the synagogue’s Tikkun Olam (Hebrew for “heal the world”) Committee, drawing more than 100 people attending both in person and virtually.

Many of the questions reflected the change of political affairs with the beginning of the new Trump administration, which has already issued executive orders that aim to crack down on illegal immigration, roll back environmental regulations and limit gender identification to match one’s identified sex at birth.

Comerford noted how most of the delegation present had come into office during the latter half of the first Trump administration, having set up several safeguards ensuring reproductive rights and access to gender-affirming care during that initial period. But daunting challenges remain in the new term, with a more aggressive Trump now backed by a more supportive Supreme Court and a Republican-controlled U.S. Congress.

“This is not the first term that we have faced a Trump administration,” Comerford said. “But there’s so much more things that we have to do, especially at this time, because the stakes keep getting higher.”

Comerford said she had introduced four different bills in the State House relating to the protection of trans rights in the state, such as wider permitting for building gender-neutral bathrooms and expanding access to gender-affirming care. Comerford, who identifies as a lesbian, said issues relating to LGBTQ rights were personal to her.

“I’m a member of the LGBTQ family. I feel that pretty personally,” Comerford said. “These are very much influenced by constituents who have talked to me over the years about this.”

Sabadosa noted she and Comerford had also sponsored legislation relating to gender changes on state documents, amid the U.S. State Department suspending the processing of passports with an ‘X’ gender. She called recent announcements from the current administration “terrifying,” but also tried to assure attendees that many rights remained protected under law.

“Every time you open the newspaper, the headlines are very, very scary, but the headlines are often not the whole story,” Sabadosa said. “This is not permanent crisis … we just need to also remember to protect our [federal] Constitution.”

Domb said that Massachusetts, a state controlled entirely by Democrats, was likely to be a prime target for Trump over the next four years in terms of enforcing his immigration agenda. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have already conducted raids in Boston since the new administration took hold, with the arrests broadcast on the Trump-supporting Fox News network.

“I think Massachusetts will be targeted for a lot of reasons, not least of which because our governor fought back against the president last time, and also we have a lot of data,” Domb said, referencing laws that allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses and receive tuition to state schools.

“All of that is to be proud of and to keep, but it creates a data trough that the current federal administration could weaponize. So I know that on the state level, they’re looking at ways to protect that.”

Domb added that the new administration was “trying to scare people, and that fear can be used to leverage a whole lot of other kinds of actions that include immigrants and include non-immigrants.”

Regarding the environment, Blais said she was working on a bill that would divert revenue from the state’s sporting goods sales tax to go toward land conservation and farmland protection.

“We’re saying with this bill ... we should take that sporting goods sales tax, which generates $100 million annually, and put that towards these really beneficial things that we need to meet, our climate goals, our resiliency goals, our land protection goals,” Blais said. “We have a really tremendous group of organizations that are supporting that, and so I just want to flag that for you [all] going forward.”

Also appearing at the event was Northampton Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra, who spoke briefly at the event addressing concerns about antisemitism.

“Antisemitism has no place in Northampton or anywhere on this earth,” Sciarra said. “As a city, we’ve tried to address these challenges specifically by cleaning up graffiti and supporting local businesses that have felt targeted, and by working closely with the Northampton Police Department on what it felt was needed.”

State Rep. Homar Gomez, recently elected to the state Legislature, did not appear at the event, citing a medical situation. State Sen. John Velis, who has attended the event in past years also did not make it, but a representative from his office was present.

Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.