CHELSEA, Mass.—As Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey prepares to move illegal immigrants into Boston’s Soldiers’ Home—a facility that has long served as a home for U.S. veterans—a new poll reveals increasing discontent in the state over the amount of money spent on housing illegal immigrants.
According to a WGBH News/CommonWealth Beacon poll, conducted by MassINC Polling Group, 47 percent of respondents oppose providing emergency shelter to illegal immigrants while 45 percent support it, a 10-point drop from the 55 percent that supported the policy in an October 2023 poll conducted by the same polling firm.
“The budgetary impacts are becoming more clear, and people are beginning to see it as a bigger issue, perhaps, than it was when it first began,” MassINC president Steve Koczela told WGBH, a public broadcasting station in Boston.
The poll question specific to illegal immigrant housing asked, “Recently, thousands of migrants have come to Massachusetts, many of whom are currently being housed in the state’s emergency shelter system. Overall, do you support or oppose housing migrants in the emergency shelter system?”
Republican lawmakers and grassroots organizations are actively campaigning to amend the shelter law to add a residency requirement in the wake of the billions the Healey administration is spending to house noncitizens in the New England state.
According to an Aug. 8 emergency declaration letter Ms. Healey sent to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas last year, Massachusetts taxpayers are footing an average of $45 million a month to house illegal immigrants. Ms. Healey recently asked lawmakers for another $500 million to cover the cost of sheltering illegal immigrants in the state.
Of the 1,002 people who participated in the MassInc poll, 8 percent either declined to answer the question about housing for illegal immigrants or said they didn’t know how they felt about it.
According to the WGBH article, Robin Nice, chair of the New England Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, called the drop in support for illegal immigrants “alarming.”
“If you were to rephrase this question as, ‘Would you do anything to keep your kids safe and to keep a roof over their head?’ I would imagine that that result will be 100%,” she reportedly said in a written response to the results. “Shift the conversation and think about what do we need and what do we all deserve as humans, regardless of where we may have been born?”
Neighbors of Soldiers’ Home
Some people who live near the emergency shelters for illegal immigrants say the governor hasn’t sought any input from them.Rick Silva, who lives next to the Soldiers’ Home complex in Chelsea, is among neighbors who recently told The Epoch Times they are angry that the Healey administration never discussed her plans with them.
“We should know. I feel like they try and keep it quiet,” Mr. Silva, who works as a grocery store manager, said. “It’s like a sneaky move to me.”
Mr. Silva and other neighbors said they are concerned about criminal activity and other problems that have been reported at illegal immigrant encampments in the state and around the country.
In New York state, residents have complained of loud parties, prostitution, and drug use at places where illegal immigrants are housed.
In Massachusetts, the state was housing illegal immigrants at a hotel in Rockland, including a 15-year-old girl from Haiti. A man who was also living there allegedly raped the girl in March.
Mr. Silva, a former U.S. Marine, said he is also appalled that the state is housing illegal immigrants when Boston officials have idly stood by for decades doing nothing about homeless veterans. “We have all seen them for years wondering around Boston, why did Healey bring them here?” he said.
Under state policy, veterans who earn more than $300 a month are charged $30 a day for housing at the Chelsea complex.
Other neighbors, who asked not to be identified, said that veterans have to pay to stay at the Soldiers’ Home while illegal immigrants are being sheltered for free on top of being provided daily meals at the expense of taxpayers.
According to the Healey administration, the illegal immigrants are being moved into a vacant building at the sprawling hilltop complex. It sits amid a quiet residential-only community which is one of the few middle-class and working-class neighborhoods left in Boston.
At a press conference, Ms. Healey said the empty building at the Chelsea veterans’ home was “set to be demolished,” but described it as a place “that could be quite easily and readily repurposed into a safety net site” for illegal immigrants.
Mr. Silva said the building has only been vacant for a few months.
The Healey administration said it will be moving about 100 illegal immigrants into the home sometime in April and that it will be “families only.”
Soldiers' Home in Boston, Mass., on April 7, 2024. Courtesy of Alice Giordano
Following the announcement that illegal immigrants were being moved into a building at the Soldiers’ Home, the Healey administration came under fire again for refusing to name where the governor is moving 100 illegal immigrants who have been housed at a Cape Cod motel since September.
The illegal immigrants are being moved from the Harborside Suites hotel in Yarmouth after the local authorities declared the hotel had violated an ordinance that limits temporary stays to less than 30 days.
Republicans have said publicly that the Healey administration has refused to say where the illegal immigrants will be going.
“There is no justification for withholding information from the public regarding the destinations for these migrants,” said Amy Carnevale, chairwoman of the Massachusetts Republican Party, in a statement. “The Democratic supermajority bears responsibility for this crisis and they’re not being straightforward with how they’re handling it.”
Republican state Sen. Peter Durant told The Epoch Times that Ms. Healey’s “continued lack of transparency” is starting to wear thin with Massachusetts’ taxpayers.
Ms. Healey faced a similar backlash when she moved illegal immigrants into a popular recreational center in Boston’s historically black community of Roxbury.
Residents lost access to the facilities, including an indoor pool, and several youth programs were suspended as a result of Ms. Healey repurposing the center into a shelter for illegal immigrants.
Ms. Healey recently announced new policies that will require illegal immigrants housed in state-run shelters to show they are actively looking for employment and housing.
“If they don’t have a good reason for not fulfilling these requirements, then they will lose their spot,” Ms. Healey said.
