The southern border is a mess due to the incompetence of the Biden administration, but the weak border also creates problems for New England’s most populous state.
Massachusetts affirmed its status as a magnet for immigrants last year, creating problems for the state. However, the Bay State could take one easy step to help quell its migrant troubles and the influx at the southern border.
Massachusetts is the only state in the union with a right-to-shelter law.
The state guarantees emergency housing assistance to families and pregnant women. That’s fine. However, the law lacks a residency requirement, meaning people, including illegal immigrants, can come from all over the world and take advantage of this law.
The results have been disastrous. The Bay State’s emergency shelter system hit its 7,500 family cap in November 2023, and the problem has worsened over the past few months.
Late last year, the Massachusetts legislature approved $250 million for additional emergency shelter spending for this fiscal year. It contributed to the state’s financial woes, which recently caused Gov. Maura Healey (D-MA) to enact $375 million in emergency budget cuts. She cut funding for over 30 fire departments statewide, among other essential services.
Plus, the state has driven its citizens to homelessness; it has paid to put immigrants up in motels on the taxpayers’ dime, driving up demand and cost for rooms. Therefore, poor Bay Staters cannot afford the new, higher rates, nor can they pay for weeks at a time upfront, forcing some residents to live in their cars.
Now, the problem is so bad that immigrants keep coming to Massachusetts, where they sleep on the floor at Boston’s Logan International Airport as they await taxpayer-funded housing. Notice how neighboring blue states such as Vermont and Rhode Island, which lack this right-to-shelter law, do not have this same problem.
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Incentives matter when it comes to immigration and the border. When a state says it will provide people with free housing, it should surprise no one when the state gets more people coming than it can handle. Additionally, Massachusetts is a state that has eight sanctuary cities and provides driver’s licenses and in-state tuition for illegal immigrants, plus around $2 billion in welfare benefits to illegal immigrant households annually. Also, the Bay State lacks mandatory E-Verify for employers and strong wage theft protections for employees, making hiring and exploiting illegal immigrants easier and more profitable.
As long as Joe Biden is president, we should have little faith in the federal government properly handling border security. However, the last thing we need is for states to make the problem worse at the expense of their residents.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts.