Citing Federal ‘Inaction,’ Massachusetts Declares State of Emergency as It Tries To Cope With Influx of Asylum-Seekers

The governor of Massachusetts, Maura Healey, has declared a state of emergency in order to help it cope with what she described as “rapid and unabating increases” in the number of migrants flocking to the sanctuary state 2,200 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border.Much like leaders at places such as New York City, Washington, D.C., and other Democratic enclaves far from the border, Ms. Healey is calling for federal assistance to help defray the ballooning costs of accommodating all the refugees. She blamed the influx on a “federal crisis of inaction that is many years in the making.”“In recent months, demand has increased to levels that our emergency shelter system cannot keep up with,” Ms Healey said Tuesday. “I am declaring a state of emergency in Massachusetts and urging my partners in the federal government to take the action we need to address this crisis.”In addition to housing assistance, Ms. Healey urged the Biden administration and its allies in Congress to streamline the work authorization process for the new arrivals and consider comprehensive immigration reform to address the root causes of the problem.The state has already increased shelter capacity by 80 percent in the past year, but the increase has not been enough. The governor said the state is currently housing some 20,000 asylum seekers in emergency shelters across Massachusetts, including 5,500 families. In July, as many as 100 families a day were showing up at state field offices seeking shelter, she said, compared to 25 a day in March 2022.“Even though we are currently spending more than $45 million per month on programs to help these families, our ability to create new shelter space and provide necessary supportive services is falling short,” Ms. Healey said in a letter to the secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas. “We can no longer do this alone.”After tapering off in the first months following the expiration of the Covid-era Title 42 restrictions that hampered the ability of migrants to seek asylum at the border, the number of aliens apprehended at the border has begun ticking up again. Preliminary July figures from Customs and Border Protection counted more than 137,000 people stopped at America’s southwest border. The figure is a 38 percent increase in the numbers for June.In addition to the deluge at the southern border, Border Patrol officials are now saying they are seeing dramatically rising numbers at the northern border. The chief of the so-called Swanton sector, which encompasses Vermont, New Hampshire, and the eastern section of New York, said Monday that apprehensions in that 295-mile stretch topped 5,400 in the past 10 months, more than the previous nine years combined.On Monday, hundreds of migrants attempted to overwhelm a border crossing at El Paso, Texas, after rumors circulated in the makeshift camps in Mexico that American authorities were opening the border to all comers on Tuesday. Border Patrol officers deployed tear gas to break up a large group who attempted to overrun a barrier on a bridge separating downtown El Paso from Ciudad Juarez on the Mexican side.

Citing Federal ‘Inaction,’ Massachusetts Declares State of Emergency as It Tries To Cope With Influx of Asylum-Seekers

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