Massachusetts is the only state in the nation with a right-to-refuge law, but the Biden administration is wrestling with the budget impacts of its sanctuary policies amid a border crisis of its own making.
The influx of undocumented immigrants streaming into the state seeking taxpayer-funded shelter and assistance shows no signs of abating anytime soon. Massachusetts’ limited homeless shelters reached capacity at 7,500 households in November. Since then, the state has continued to be inundated with undocumented immigrants, with few willing to stand on their own, relying on resident dollars to fund temporary “overflow” shelters. The undocumented immigrants residing in these overflow shelters are the same people currently on the state’s emergency aid waiting list to move into more stable housing.
Gov. Maura Healey’s (D) administration reported 11,000 arrivals between October 2022 and September 2023.
“This is not a short-term issue, it’s a long-term financial issue.”
Jessica Vaughn, director of policy research at the Center for Immigration Studies, told Blaze News, “We estimate 50,000 new illegal immigrants under the Biden administration, which is a significant increase in recent history. Massachusetts has had one of the highest increases in illegal immigration over the past decade, but this increase is even larger than that. There’s no doubt that the Healey administration’s policies have a lot to do with it.”
“Some politicians welcome illegal immigration and this is a well-known sanctuary state,” Vaughn added.
Economic impact to taxpayers
Massachusetts Right to Residence ActPassed in 1983, the law requires the state to provide housing for all pregnant women and families with children. The state’s shelter system allows parents to keep their children in the shelters. Under 21The law requires that shelters be equipped with refrigerators and basic cooking facilities, but makeshift emergency shelters lack these and taxpayers are spending more money to pay vendors to deliver food to undocumented immigrants. Wikipedia The February report was released.
The news organization’s investigation found that Massachusetts taxpayers spend about $64 per day to feed each illegal immigrant. The organization was awarded vendor contracts for a number of services, including contracts with 17 hotels and motels totaling more than $116 million for the 2024 fiscal year, which ends in June. Some hotels also have contracts to provide three meals a day, WBZ reported.
The state’s Democratic leaders have called on the Biden administration to provide more federal aid to combat the influx of illegal immigrants, but local politicians remain resistant to the idea of reforming right-to-refuge laws or the state’s sanctuary policies.
Vaughan told The Blaze News that the construction of the hotels being converted into evacuation centres was “funded out of our emergency fund.”
“The contract is not going to be renewed. It’s unclear where the funding is going to come from for 2025,” Vaughan said.
“The short-term costs are huge, but there are also long-term costs if people end up staying here,” she continued. “Most of them won’t qualify for green cards, but they’ll stay here for a while if immigration enforcement becomes much stricter, there are fewer sanctuary policies, and employers can’t hire them. All of these policy changes will take years to implement.”
The Healey administration plans to start sending out 90-day eviction notices in July in an effort to get some families out by the end of September because the state’s emergency shelter system is overwhelmed.
“It’s time for her to take this issue seriously and reform the state’s housing rights laws.”
Instead of reevaluating state policies that attract illegal immigrants, Healey, like many other Democrats, used the opportunity to blast Republicans for defeating a bill introduced in the Senate earlier this year. Democrats have consistently maintained that the bill would have helped stem the rise in illegal immigration if passed. But conservatives have repeatedly rejected that claim, arguing that the bill was not designed to solve the open border crisis.
Healy at the time Announced Regarding the new restrictions on shelter stays, she said Massachusetts has “gone above and beyond because Congress has repeatedly failed to act on this commonwealth issue.”
“This new length of stay policy will strengthen efforts to connect families with the resources and services they need to transition to more stable housing and contribute to the workforce,” Healey argued.
Some undocumented immigrants have been sleeping on floors at Boston Logan International Airport since emergency shelters in Massachusetts ran out of space. The number of people using airports as shelters appears to have increased in recent months. Reports earlier this month estimated that more than 100 undocumented immigrants were sleeping in the airport’s baggage claim area while waiting for other accommodations to become available.
Politicians put locals behind illegal immigrants
Governor Healey and her administration faced strong backlash from the Roxbury community after they closed a recreation center there and used the space to house hundreds of undocumented immigrants. Residents protested the decision and called on Governor Healey to open shelters in more affluent neighborhoods instead.
After months of operating the shelter, Healy announced that the recreation center in Roxbury, one of Massachusetts’ poorest communities, would reopen to local residents for the summer. Resident dissatisfaction has prompted Healy to promise some renovations before the facility’s grand opening.
As shelters closed and illegal immigrants flocked to airports, the governor’s office announced plans in May to convert a defunct prison, the Bay State Correctional Center in Norfolk, into the next detention center for about 400 families.
“Many of the communities that are hosting these new illegal immigrants are complaining about it, and many of these facilities are having problems,” Vaughn told The Blaze News. “It’s almost like these shelters have become a nuisance that needs to be dealt with here and there to make sure nobody is harmed.”
“It doesn’t make sense to continue to move people like this, and the state knows many of them will need shelter long after they want to move,” she added.
This “troublesome problem” now appears to be spreading to Norfolk, where residents are outraged and concerned about the state’s plans to renovate a former prison and inject large numbers of students into the local school system, which is already overcrowded.
“The exorbitant costs of this right to housing program continue to total more than $1.2 billion.”
During the period June 4th At the Norfolk Board of Selectmen’s Bay State Community Forum, local residents asked the Healey administration if they could guarantee the prison shelter would be closed within 12 months. A spokesperson for the governor’s office responded, “Our plan is based on available funding. We expect to close it within six to 12 months.”
“It’s a shame,” said John Semas of Norfolk. Swift“There’s no turning back now. The schools are already overcrowded and there are budgetary issues. This is not a humanitarian issue, it’s a mathematical issue. This should not be happening.”
Vaughan told Blaze News that the Norfolk school system “will be forced to incur huge costs to provide an education for all these newly arrived immigrants.”
“Numerous studies have shown that the cost of educating non-English speaking students is 20 to 40 percent higher than native-speaking students,” Vaughn said, “and there is very little additional revenue for towns to gain from accommodating these children, especially when capacity is already full. So it inevitably affects all children who attend these schools. Teachers are overstretched, classrooms are overcrowded, and funds have to be reallocated from other programs to pay for this.”
Paul Craney of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance explained the extent of the impact the illegal immigration crisis has on local school systems.
Craney told The Blaze News, “Local towns are required by state law to educate all children who live in their area. When administrations decide to turn prisons into high-capacity migrant detention facilities, local school districts are required to educate all the new children who live there. The small towns where these migrant camps are located are overwhelmed by the large numbers of children coming into their areas and receive little support from the state to alleviate the problem.”
Mr Craney called on Mr Healey to reform housing rights laws.
“Instead, Governor Healey flies to Italy and puts the blame on federal politics,” he continued. “Governor Healey needs to take responsibility for this crisis and take real action to eliminate the factors that are forcing migrants to make the long journey from our open southern border to Massachusetts. It’s time for the Governor to take this issue seriously and reform our state’s right to residence law.”
according to AxiosThe state estimates it will cost $915 million in fiscal year 2025 to provide shelter for undocumented immigrants.
Rep. Aaron Michlewicz (D), chairman of the Massachusetts House Ways and Means Committee, said: stated In March, the state government said it was “facing a migration crisis unlike any other state in the country, with our emergency family shelter system and budget currently stretched to the limits.”
Vaughn said Massachusetts is “a perfect case study in proving that you can’t have unlimited illegal immigration and a welfare state that guarantees all these services to everybody.”
“It’s just not sustainable,” she told Blaze News. “Many of these people have immigration court dates five to seven years away. This is not a short-term issue, it’s a long-term financial issue.”
“Even if the border were closed tomorrow, the costs of this influx would continue for years, because the longer these families are allowed to stay, the more they become eligible for welfare programs like Medicaid, food stamps, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and other means-tested welfare programs,” Vaughn said. “Already, about half of new arrivals are immediately eligible for welfare programs, but in five years they will be part of that population even more.”
GBH News/Commonwealth Beacon vote A survey conducted by MassINC polling group found that immigration is a top concern for Massachusetts residents. Of the 1,000 people surveyed, 28% said the “current immigration issue” is a “crisis” and 39% said it is a “big problem.” Despite the concerns of residents surveyed, 79% said they would still support the state’s right-to-shelter law. However, 47% said they do not support providing emergency shelter to undocumented immigrants, and 45% said they strongly or somewhat support providing it.
“The Massachusetts Senate had an opportunity to do the right thing for our residents, but the majority party failed to do so,” Massachusetts Senator Ryan Fatman (R-Massachusetts) told The Blaze News. “I have been advocating for a residency requirement since the 2023 state budget debate. Despite expressing concerns about this crisis at the time, legislative leaders failed to act. Not only did they fail to include a residency requirement, they failed to establish that hardworking, taxpaying Massachusetts families will be prioritized.”
“The exorbitant costs of this right to housing program continue to total more than $1.2 billion,” Fatman continued. “This is not only extremely unfair to Massachusetts residents, but also to the vast majority of programs across the state that are seeing funding cuts due to budgetary constraints. I will continue to fight this issue because I believe hard-working Massachusetts residents’ tax dollars should be used in a way that benefits us all.”
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