Illegal immigrants will no longer be allowed to encamp in Boston’s Logan International Airport as Massachusetts begins housing migrants in a taxpayer-funded emergency facility.
Gov. Maura Healey (D-MA) broke the news on Friday, saying that effective July 9, migrants will be banned from sheltering in the state’s largest airport. Instead, the sanctuary state will transfer migrants to a taxpayer-funded facility in Norfolk. Massachusetts is opening up an emergency shelter in a former minimum-security prison facility that will accommodate approximately 450 people.
The state's emergency assistance director, Scott Rice, said in a statement that “the airport is not an appropriate place for people to seek shelter.” Instead, Rice touted the development of the Norfolk sheltering facility as “progress,” saying it makes it possible to “end the practice of families staying overnight in the airport.” It is unclear how much the facility will cost.
Healey’s press release announcing the decision reiterated a message to migrants at the southern border, telling them not to come to Massachusetts without a plan for housing, as the state has been drained “out of shelter space.”
“We are going to continue to spread the word,” the release read, “that if families are traveling to Massachusetts, they need to be prepared with a plan for housing that does not include Logan Airport or our Emergency Assistance shelters.”
The announcement comes after Healey sent a state delegation to Texas, warning migrants at the southern border not to come to Massachusetts.
Rice called the trip “an important opportunity to meet with families arriving in the U.S. and the organizations that work with them at the border to make sure they have accurate information about the lack of shelter space in Massachusetts.”
The state plans to spend $915 million on emergency migrant housing in the next fiscal year. In February, a poll commissioned by the Fiscal Alliance Foundation found that a majority of Massachusetts voters were opposed to providing taxpayer-funded housing to migrants.
It is unclear how many illegal immigrants are in Massachusetts. According to the Department of Health and Human Services , there is no “comprehensive count” of migrants in the state.
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Between 2010 and 2021, Massachusetts’s illegal immigrant population grew by approximately 120,000. That figure excludes data from 2020. In 2022, the state saw close to 18,000 asylum filings. Between October 2022 and September 2023, the Healey administration tracked an additional 11,000 migrants, marking a 152% increase over the previous fiscal year.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Healey’s office for comment.
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