The Biden administration ought to ship an “assessment team” to Boston so federal officers can see first-hand how the state is grappling with an inflow of migrants and the necessity for funds to help new arrivals, U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss wrote in a Friday letter to a state lawmaker.
Massachusetts’ emergency shelter is overflowing with homeless and migrant households who’ve the precise to hunt shelter beneath state legislation. State and native officers have repeatedly referred to as on the federal authorities for funding and assist managing the state of affairs, which has led to frustration amongst Massachusetts Democrats.
Auchincloss mentioned he shares a “deep frustration with our nation’s broken immigration system and its impact on our constituents.”
“I will continue to work to pass the bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform that I have co-sponsored and encourage the Biden administration to send officials to the commonwealth to assess the need for additional federal support,” Auchincloss wrote in a letter addressed to state Sen. Marc Pacheco, a Taunton Democrat.
Pacheco final month satisfied greater than 60 state lawmakers to signal onto a letter calling for immigration reform that was despatched to congressional leaders and the Biden administration. It was an indication of mounting Democratic stress on Washington to assist Massachusetts take care of 1000’s of latest arrivals getting into the native emergency shelter system.
Immigration reform, Pacheco wrote, is urgently wanted to handle a dysfunctional entry system and a “rapidly-devolving” workforce scarcity.
“The last time we took legal immigration legislation predates the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of the internet,” Pacheco later instructed reporters. “The world is a completely different place today. We need an immigration system that allows the U.S. to meet the challenges of the rest of this 21st century.”
For his half, Auchincloss pointed to federal laws he backs that he mentioned “is a comprehensive proposal, incorporating border security, a fair and orderly pathway to citizenship, and root-cause solutions.”
The so-called DIGNITY Act, he mentioned, creates two new pathways to citizenship, together with speedy protected standing and a streamlined path for “Dreamers” and non permanent protected standing recipients. The invoice additionally reduces immigrant visa backlogs by granting speedy inexperienced playing cards to people who’ve been ready for greater than 10 years, he mentioned.
Federal funding for border safety, improved ports of entry, new “humanitarian campuses, and extra staff could be funded by a 1.5% tax deducted from the paychecks of individuals given work authorization beneath the invoice.
“This comprehensive legislation must be enacted alongside separate work authorization reforms,” Auchincloss wrote.
Auchincloss despatched the letter to Pacheco a day after he took half in a digital briefing with different members of the state’s congressional delegation and Gov. Maura Healey, Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll, Senate President Karen Spilka, and House Speaker Ronald Mariano.
Mariano mentioned state officers pressed the federal delegation for assist in the course of the assembly.
“We asked them to help us in this fight, to identify locations to house people, identify sources of money that we can access to help the immigrants that are moving into our school system, moving into our housing stock, anything that they can provide us to relieve the pressures that we are beginning to feel,” Mariano mentioned Thursday.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”