Massachusetts Migrant Crisis: Governor Healy Ignores the Elephant in the Room

After a 26-year-old Haitian illegal alien was recently charged with raping a minor at a Boston area migrant shelter, and another illegal alien from the Dominican Republic staying at a nearby shelter was charged with gun violations and the intent to distribute a staggering 11 pounds of fentanyl, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey was flummoxed. She seemed surprised that criminal background checks weren’t being conducted in migrant shelters and that crime is rampant in the dozens of run-down motels that Massachusetts has converted into ad hoc housing for thousands of illegal aliens with unknown backgrounds. The memorable line in Casablanca, disingenuously uttered by Captain Renault, “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here,” was never more apt.
Her response? The governor has ordered an “independent review of security at state-run shelters,” the usual kick-the-can-down-the road diversionary tactic.
Former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis will oversee an investigative study that reviews procedures at every shelter across Massachusetts and report back to the governor. The idea is to make sure each shelter runs background checks on all applicants — despite the fact that many migrants have fraudulent identities and papers, making thorough investigations near impossible. “We inherited an unprecedented situation,” said Gov. Healey. (Note the responsibility-evading use of the word “inherited” instead of “manufactured,” which more accurately describes why the state is facing an unprecedented situation.) “I want Ed to have a full look at everything and report back to me in the very near term about what additional steps we should take and put in place.”
But like any diehard mass immigration supporter, Gov. Healey will never address the elephant in the room – decades-long sanctuary policies that prohibit local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration officials and that offer illegal aliens in-state tuition rates, health care, and driver’s licenses. At best any “additional steps” coming out of the governor’s office will simply treat symptoms and not address underlying causes, notably the vast array of sanctuary incentives and protections offered to illegal aliens in the Bay State that has made it a preferred destination for illegal aliens.
Things are a mess in Massachusetts, and nothing short of a swift and complete reversal of sanctuary policies is likely to help. Incentivized by a welcoming honey pot of benefits in addition to the lure of guaranteed housing (and very few questions asked) thanks to the state’s right-to-shelter law, 292,000 illegal aliens and their 101,000 U.S.-born children now reside in Massachusetts. The state’s 128 shelters are filled to capacity with long waiting lists. Of 7,500 homeless families occupying them, about half are newly arrived migrants. The cost for migrant housing alone was about $1 billion in fiscal year 2024 and projected to be $1.1 billion in 2025.
Massachusetts Republican Party spokesman Logan Trupiano told the Boston Herald that, “From the very beginning, the Healy administration’s handling of the migrant crisis has been nothing short of catastrophic. The policies and inaction of her administration, along with the Democrat supermajority, have plunged Massachusetts into a full-blown humanitarian crisis.”
Massachusetts citizens will likely remember that Gov. Healey decreased public safety and increased taxpayer burdens by deliberately ignoring the biggest elephant of all trampling their state: Dangerous and costly sanctuary policies.
Elephants have excellent memories, and so do voters.
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