Despite Criminal Activity, Governor Healey Asks Legislature to Spend Millions More in Taxpayer Dollars to House Illegal Aliens

FAIR Take | January 2025
Massachusetts taxpayers may soon have to pay more money to house illegal aliens. With the money for the state’s shelters running out this month, Governor Maura Healey on January 7 asked the legislature to provide an additional $425 million in taxpayer dollars to subsidize the shelters.
Governor Healey’s request comes on the heels of high-profile crimes that have occurred in the shelters. The most recent incident involved Leonardo Andujar Sanchez, an illegal alien from the Dominican Republic. Sanchez was arrested on December 27 at the Revere Quality Inn, which has been operating as a temporary shelter for migrants. He was charged with possession of an AR-15 rifle as well as with five kilos of fentanyl and cocaine valued at nearly $1 million. According to authorities, the room where he was staying also contained ammunition, two rifle magazines, a digital scale, and latex gloves.
Since Sanchez’ arrest, Governor Healey has ordered all the state shelters and their intake processes to be investigated. However, Republicans in the state house have raised significant questions regarding the incident. In a letter they wrote, “How is it possible an undocumented immigrant here illegally is receiving a benefit of emergency family shelter, even though our laws do not allow it? How is it this individual wasn’t flagged in a so-called comprehensive background check upon application for shelter?” “How is it despite the strict gun laws of the Commonwealth this individual was allegedly able to acquire a high-capacity firearm? How was a criminal enterprise being run out of a family shelter as he allegedly obtained fentanyl and cocaine that he was allegedly selling from the shelter’s motel room?”
State Republican Party Chair Amy Carnevale criticized the state’s shelter system saying, “Why are long-term Massachusetts families left waiting for emergency housing while a criminal illegal immigrant is conducting a criminal enterprise from within state-funded housing? This amounts to state-funded crime.”
In response to backlash, Governor Healey may be changing her tune. While she previously vowed to fight President Trump’s policies to remove illegal aliens from the country, she now wants President Trump to fix the border crisis.
Moreover, Sanchez is not the first illegal alien charged with committing a serious crime while staying at one of the Massachusetts shelters. Cory Alvarez, a Haitian, was staying at the Comfort Inn which was used to shelter migrants when he allegedly raped a 15-year girl last March. He was admitted into the United States under the unlawful Biden Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, Venezuelan program.
These incidents are just the tip of the iceberg. State records, which were just released in December, show that during a 20-month period (January 2023 – August 2024) there were more than 1,000 serious incidents at Massachusetts emergency shelters. These incidents included nearly a dozen allegations of rape or assault as well as domestic violence and drugs.
Illegal aliens are attracted to Massachusetts because of the state’s right to shelter law, which provides families with temporary shelter as well as food assistance and medical care. The shelters, which at one point included 128 hotels and motels across the state, cost the state about $1 billion in 2024.
The shelter system is expected to cost Massachusetts taxpayers upwards of $1.1 billion in fiscal year 2025, which started July 1, 2024 and runs through June 30, 2025. The legislature has already allocated $639 million in shelter funding for fiscal year 2025. However, state officials say there is a shortfall of $455 million. They claim that the funding for the shelter system will run out at the end of January unless the legislature takes action to provide more money.
According to a FAIR report in 2023, 292,000 illegal aliens and their 101,000 U.S. born children live in Massachusetts.
Support from readers like you is crucial in funding FAIR’s operations. Please consider making a difference with a tax-deductible contribution and join our efforts in educating the public on sensible immigration reform.