A Department of Homeland Security group tasked with “assessing” the migrant state of affairs in Massachusetts plans to go to Boston Tuesday and Wednesday, in accordance with the Healey administration.
The journey comes as migrant arrivals have surged in Massachusetts, pushing an emergency shelter system already overburdened with the variety of native homeless households into disaster mode. Skyrocketing housing prices and lengthy processing intervals for work authorizations have slowed each native households and migrants’ potential to exit non permanent housing.
The Biden administration stated final week it was sending a Homeland Security group to “assess the current migrant situation and identify ways to improve efficiencies and maximize our support for communities that are addressing the needs of migrants.”
“We look forward to having the DHS team visit Boston this week to better understand the challenges the city and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are facing, and to make response recommendations as to how we continue to work together,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas stated in a Monday letter to Gov. Maura Healey.
A spokesperson for Healey stated the administration “welcomes” the chance to point out the evaluation group “the extremely difficult situation we are facing and discuss badly-needed support.”
“Congress needs to act on President Biden’s $4 billion supplemental request which would make available some funding for cities and states. We will continue to advocate for more funding in addition to that and changes to the work authorization process,” spokesperson Karissa Hand stated in an announcement.
In an announcement to the Herald, a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson stated the company is coordinating with Boston and state officers “to identify ways we can continue to maximize our support for communities that are addressing the needs of migrants while enforcing tough consequences against those without a legal basis to remain in the country.”
“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,” the spokesperson stated whereas pointing to $2.8 million the Biden administration has shuttled to Boston.
For the previous two months since declaring a state of emergency in response to the crowded emergency shelter system, Healey has referred to as on the federal authorities to supply extra funding to cope with migrant arrivals and make it simpler for them to acquire work authorizations.
After assembly in individual with Mayorkas on the State House over the summer season, Healey penned a letter final month asking for 2 regulatory modifications that may enable migrants to work as soon as they’re granted immigration standing by the federal authorities and use their utility as a provisional employment authorization doc.
In the Monday letter, Mayorkas stated the feds have taken “several concrete steps” to shortly hand out work authorizations.
He stated employment authorization purposes had been quick tracked for individuals who have been paroled into the United States following a CBP One appointment, in addition to these paroled from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
“(U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is working to decrease media processing time for (employment authorization document) applications for these individuals to 30 days,” Mayorkas wrote.
Officials have additionally despatched over 1 million notifications to folks paroled into the U.S. to lift consciousness about their eligibility to use for a piece authorization. And Mayorkas additionally pointed to a current transfer by the Biden administration to increase non permanent protected standing for Venezuelans.
“This administration has overseen the largest expansion of lawful pathways to the United States in decades,” Mayorkas wrote.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”