Migrant crisis puts Healey in unwinnable fight
Governor Maura Healey’s administration is increasingly being defined by an issue it lacks the power to solve, the same issue that’s frustrating some members of the Legislature and bringing neo-Nazis out of the woodwork.
The migrant issue has become a petri dish for confusion at best and racial ugliness at worst. As the number of migrant families coming to Massachusetts — most of whom are seeking asylum — keeps increasing, one has to wonder how long the governor will bite her tongue rather than go the route of New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who has sharply criticized the Biden administration for its response to the crisis.
On Saturday night, members of NSC-131 — a New England-based neoNazi organization — staged a protest outside a state-sponsored shelter and family welcome center located on the campus of Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy. The week before, up to 20 members of NSC-131 — wearing black masks, carrying a xenophobic banner, and chanting “refugees, go home!” — protested outside the Extended Stay America in Marlborough, a hotel where the state is renting rooms as emergency shelter for families that are homeless or seeking asylum. Similarly, the group, which has regional chapters in the United States and a presence in France, Hungary, and Germany, held an anti-immigrant protest outside three hotels in Woburn in late August.
The local neo-Nazi protests seem to be getting more frequent and are one measure, albeit a radical one, of the local backlash against migrants. Tensions around the asylum-seeking families are also emerging among state lawmakers, who in a closed-door meeting last week with members of Healey’s Cabinet, including Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll, Health and Human Services Secretary Kate Walsh, and Housing and Livable Communities Secretary Ed Augustus, voiced their frustration about the poor communication between the Healey administration and local authorities, and raised concerns about the strain the influx of immigrants is having on local communities. For instance, majority leader Michael Moran, a Democrat from Boston, told reporters that migrant children “just showed up” on the first day of school in Milford without notice to the school district.
The migrant influx shows no signs of abating. As of Friday, almost 6,300 families — or more than 20,000 individuals — were housed in the state’s shelter network. Of those families, nearly 2,700 are staying in hotels or motels across the state. In late July, the Healey administration told the Globe editorial board that the state doesn’t track immigration status of families in the system but that state officials estimate that between a third and a half of those families are newly arrived (within the past 30 days.) Officials estimate that the state is paying $45 million a month to provide emergency shelter.
For Healey, it’s all adding up to a volatile mix in a political pressure cooker ready to explode. She’s on the same track that led Adams to become the highest ranking Democrat to harshly criticize President Biden. Adams has been struggling with the migrant crisis for months and has sharply pointed his finger at Biden’s mishandling of the issue. New York City is housing 59,000 migrants in shelters each night. He has been begging the Biden administration to expedite work permits for recent arrivals, something Healey did last week in an urgent letter to US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. “[H]istoric demand for workers across all industries shows us that we have a clear and unique opportunity to convert what now may be a challenge into an immense opportunity for our state and for the entire country,” Healey wrote.
Adams said last week: “This issue will destroy New York City.” To be sure, Adams does not share the far-right sentiments about the migrants. Nor is he characterizing the influx as an invasion, which is the standard Republican posture. His view is a natural reaction to the Biden administration’s illogical, somewhat inexplicable reluctance to allow the new arrivals to work. Without question, that is the single most important policy action Biden can take to start simplifying what has become a chaotic migrant crisis for urban centers.
Like Healey, Adams is largely powerless but all the same must own the migrant crisis — and any political fallout from it. But it’s becoming increasingly evident within the Democratic Party that Biden’s unwillingness to act is largely to blame.
One has to wonder how long the governor will bite her tongue rather than go the route of New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who has sharply criticized the Biden administration for its response to the crisis.