Massachusetts’ Democratic governor, Maura Healey, has tripled her state’s budget for migrant shelters but has not responded to requests to explain how she has spent $1 billion so far on migrant housing.
For example, in one case, the state was found to have spent $16.3 million renting hotels in Boston to house illegal immigrants. But after being asked where the money had been spent, the state Did not disclose Who was paid the millions of dollars? The Boston Globe.
This is not the only contract whose details were redacted after the Paper filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
“Even in Massachusetts, a state with a poor track record of making government records available for public scrutiny, the secrecy is extreme.” Gloves The report adds:
“Governor Maura Healey’s administration broke norms of government accountability by concealing critical information about some contractors and closing shelters to the public, even as the state tripled its spending on services for migrant and homeless families. Without transparency, it is difficult or impossible for oversight agencies to ensure taxpayer money is not wasted and that vulnerable families are receiving safe housing and proper care.
The paper added several screenshots of FOIA pages showing entire pages of information blacked out, hiding the information from the prying eyes of state residents.
But state officials say the confidentiality is necessary to protect the “privacy” of more than 7,000 undocumented immigrant families who receive millions of dollars in free government assistance, courtesy of Massachusetts taxpayers.
Healey’s spokeswoman, Carisa Hand, specifically pointed to protesters who demonstrated at the shelter in opposition to the state’s support for immigrants, calling them, without evidence, a “hate group.”
“Hate groups have repeatedly identified shelter locations and used that information to threaten, intimidate and terrorize shelter residents and staff,” Hand said, defending the state’s censorship of budget reports.
Whatever the reason, Gloves He also noted that other cities and states, including notoriously corrupt cities such as Chicago and New York City, are much more forthright in disclosing their financial reports.
Spending on immigrants has also increased elsewhere in the Bay State: In July, state Sen. Michael Moore (D) and Republican Minority Leader Bruce Thal wrote a letter to the Healey administration warning that the state was also paying for immigrants sponsored by private citizens under the federal humanitarian parole program. Boston Herald Reported at that time.
“During the recent migration crisis, Massachusetts taxpayers have footed the bill when no action was taken by the U.S. government to support communities providing housing, food and support to migrant families,” Moore and 10 other state senators said in a statement. “It is patently unfair for taxpayers to support individuals here under a program that requires certain individuals or entities to pledge financial support under penalty of perjury.”
of Gloves The state noted that since January 2023, Bay State shelter operators have called police up to 600 times to report “serious incidents” of crime inside the state’s migrant shelters. In many cases, fire and medics have also been dispatched to the shelters. But the state has not released any records of this large number of calls for police to be dispatched to the shelters, and it has also redacted most of the records of calls to a safety hotline run by the state office.
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