Federal immigration officials to assess the migrant crisis in Boston
Federal Homeland Security officials will be in Boston this week assessing the migrant crisis and ways to provide more federal support, officials confirmed to the Globe.
The action follows calls from local and state leaders for federal assistance to address the influx of migrants in Massachusetts, which continues to push the state’s shelter system and other resources to the brink.
Officials told the Globe that the Department of Homeland Security is coordinating with Boston and state leaders “to identify ways we can continue to maximize our support for communities that are addressing the needs of migrants.”
“We will continue to offer best practices and guidance to interior cities as they work to integrate eligible noncitizens into the American workforce, and to manage our nation’s broken immigration system in a safe, orderly, and humane way until Congress acts to fix it,” a spokesperson for Homeland Security said in a statement.
For months, as thousands of migrants have arrived in the state, local officials have pleaded for Washington to intervene.
Governor Maura Healey has twice written to the Biden administration, imploring officials to quickly grant work permits to the thousands of migrants who have overwhelmed the state’s shelter system and to send money to help the state provide necessary resources such as housing and transportation.
Healey administration officials said her office has been in touch with the Biden administration for several weeks about a visit.
A firmly worded letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas followed a meeting between Healey and Mayorkas about the state’s escalating migration crisis, which has led the governor to declare a state of emergency and deploy the National Guard to shelters around the state.
In a letter to Healey on Monday, Mayorkas wrote that “Congressional action is desperately needed” to address the broken immigration system, according to a copy of the letter first reported by Politico.
State officials and immigration advocates argue that the federal government’s long backlog of work permit applications has become a key obstacle in helping migrants exit the shelters and live independently. Local and state officials across the country have cited the backlog of work permit applications, which would allow migrants to earn money and thus find their own housing, as a top complaint.
“I appreciate your approach and willingness to view newly arrived noncitizens to the Commonwealth as an opportunity to meet workforce needs,” Mayorkas wrote to Healey. “We agree on the importance of providing employment authorization to those eligible.”
Massachusetts’ 1983 “rightto-shelter” law obligates officials to immediately house eligible families, pressing them to find shelter options on short notice.
The arrival of families needing shelter and support has pushed the emergency shelter system to the brink, and state officials are increasingly turning to hotels and motels, where more than 3,000 families are now being housed.
In total, the state’s shelter system is currently housing more than 6,800 families.
“Our administration welcomes the opportunity to show officials from the Department of Homeland Security the extremely difficult situation we are facing and discuss badly-needed support,” Karissa Hand, a spokesperson for Healey, said in a statement. “We will continue to advocate for more funding in addition to that and changes to the work authorization process.”
A spokesperson for Homeland Security said starting Oct. 1, the Biden administration accelerated its processing of applications for employment authorization documents from 90 days to 30 days, which would allow some migrants to work.
Only Congress can change the law to allow asylum seekers to get work authorization sooner than six months after filing their claim.
The type of assessment federal officials plan to conduct in Massachusetts recently played out in New York City, where a team spent four days visiting city shelters and meeting with local officials last month.