Gov. Maura Healey pledged that the price of operating emergency shelters housing migrants and locals would lower from its historic ranges and pushed again on conservatives who’ve labeled Massachusetts a “sanctuary state” harboring unlawful immigrants.
In an end-of-year interview with the Herald forward of her third yr in workplace, Healey forged blame on the federal authorities for immigration points within the Bay State, however stated the anticipated $1 billion tab taxpayers are set to hold in every of the subsequent a number of years will ultimately deflate.
“It’s going to go down,” she stated from contained in the State Home. “This is not a permanent situation, and it certainly is not sustainable, which is why I felt comfortable making the policy decisions that I have made to ratchet down the numbers.”
Solely migrants who’re legally allowed or paroled into the US can entry the emergency shelter system, which Healey has positioned a set of more and more restrictive adjustments on ever since she declared a state of emergency in August 2023 amid an inflow of migrants.
The restrictions, together with a 7,500 household cap on the system and limiting size of stays, seem to have had some impact. State officers reported spending much less on state-run shelters in fiscal yr 2024 than initially anticipated — $856 million reasonably than $932 million.
The associated fee continues to be above the $325 million the state has traditionally spent on emergency help shelters, which had been arrange beneath a Nineteen Eighties legislation to deal with homeless households with youngsters and pregnant girls.
Arriving migrants and the cash spent to handle them have grow to be a flashpoint on Beacon Hill, the place Republicans routinely tried this yr to implement residency necessities on shelters and in the reduction of spending.
Prime price range writers working for Healey are anticipated to ask the Legislature to approve one other spherical of spending early within the new yr to cowl shelters for the rest of fiscal yr 2025. With out one other injection of money, cash is anticipated to dry up in January, officers have stated.
Sen. Ryan Fattman, a Sutton Republican, stated regardless that new arrivals “forced” Healey to chop shelter prices and cut back the variety of households counting on state help, that has not stopped her from asking for extra {dollars} to fund the system.
“The cost is overwhelming,” he informed the Herald in an interview this previous month. “In my opinion, what cost containment looks like is reforming the amount of time that people from out of state coming into the state can stay. You want to say 30 or 60 days? Okay, that’s a good reform.”
Healey stated the measures she has taken are working — although they’ve confronted harsh criticism from some advocates — and are buoyed by the truth that 65% of households who’ve just lately sought shelter from the state are from Massachusetts.
“We’re not a sanctuary state,” Healey stated. “We have a limited budget, and the emergency shelter system really was meant for Massachusetts families who were experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity and needed a place to go that was temporary.
“We’re trying to get to that place where emergency shelter is temporary and that it’s really there just for a limited purpose for a family,” the governor added.
However at the same time as Healey touts her adjustments to state-run shelters, she has began to face a wave of conservative criticism for operating what Republicans say is a “sanctuary state” simply as President-elect Donald Trump has promised to undertake mass deportations when he takes workplace subsequent yr.
The time period “sanctuary state” usually refers to a state or municipality’s willingness to supply extra safety to undocumented immigrants.
However simply because a metropolis or city in Massachusetts considers itself a “sanctuary” doesn’t imply there is no such thing as a federal immigration enforcement, stated Sarah Sherman-Stokes, affiliate director of Boston College’s Immigrants’ Rights and Human Trafficking Clinic.
“There are gaps between some of the statewide laws and city policies that remain vulnerable and will still feed non-citizens into ICE custody,” Stokes informed the Herald.
In Massachusetts, many level to a 2017 ruling from the Supreme Judicial Court docket that bars state and native police from detaining an individual solely on the idea of their immigration standing, a call that has since been used to ban interactions with federal immigration officers.
Healey stated she believes “violent criminals should be deported if they’re not here lawfully” and that native, state, and federal legislation enforcement ought to work collectively to research and prosecute crimes and take away folks from the nation who’re criminals.
However the first-term Democrat stated she doesn’t again “showing up at a hotel, and rounding up groups of people who are suspected to be here unlawfully, who are here working, and just deporting all of them without a process.”
Healey stated, “I think what we need to do is work together here in Massachusetts to do both things: investigate, hold accountable, deport as necessary folks who are here unlawfully, who’ve engaged in criminal activity, absolutely, and also stand up for and protect the people who have been working here, going to school here, raising kids here, to ensure that they are not scared to go to the doctors or drop their kids off or school or go to work.”
