Massachusetts became the latest state to declare an emergency on Tuesday over an inability to cope with thousands of unlawful migrants who have swamped local services.
Democrat Gov. Maura Healey said the state needs federal aid to deal with the problems. She estimated 5,500 families have been sent to state shelters, an 80% rise from 2022.
“This is a national issue that demands a national response,” Healey said during a press conference Tuesday morning. “Today, I am declaring a state of emergency in Massachusetts.”
Under Massachusetts’ “right-to-shelter” law, the state is required to provide immediate housing to families in need.
Two other right-to-shelter states, New York and Illinois, also have declared emergencies. The Dallas Express wrote about New York City’s crisis earlier this week.
Since President Joe Biden took office, more than 2 million people who unlawfully came across the southern border have been released into the U.S., the Washington Examiner reported.
The crisis in New England draws attention to the border crisis more than 2,000 miles from the Texas-Mexico line.
Healey said the emergency declaration directs local officials to utilize “all means necessary” to secure housing, shelter, and health and human services to address the “humanitarian crisis.”
“The increased level of demand is not slowing down,” Healey said in a press conference at the State House in Boston. “We are unable to move people from housing and shelter into permanent housing.”
Of the 5,500 in shelters, 1,887 were in hotels, and 3,546 were in permanent shelters, a spokesperson for the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities said, according to the Boston Herald.
Healey said the numbers were driven by new arrivals.
“They are here because where they came from is too dangerous to stay,” Healey said, adding that she planned to deliver an “urgent” appeal for funding and work authorizations to the federal government.
The governor wrote a letter on Tuesday to U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. She contended that “burdensome barriers” to work authorizations for unlawful migrants have caused part of the problem.
Healey said Massachusetts “has stepped up to address what sadly has been a federal crisis of inaction that is many years in the making.”
“But can we no longer do this alone,” Healey wrote in the letter. “We need federal partnership, federal funding, and urgent federal action to meet this moment and to continue to serve some of our most vulnerable families.”
Massachusetts was last in a state of emergency on March 10, 2020, for the COVID-19 pandemic, the Herald reported. The declaration lasted until May 2023.