Gov. Maura Healey doesn’t need to amend or repeal the state’s “right to shelter” regulation.
All she must do is implement it.
The regulation as written, and handed forty years in the past, was by no means supposed to deal with and feed the explosion of migrants from around the globe storming into Massachusetts.
It was handed and signed into regulation by liberal Democrat Gov. Michael Dukakis in 1983 to take care of the comparatively small variety of homeless households and pregnant ladies who had been residents of Massachusetts, not residents of different states or international locations.
But the regulation has not been interpreted or enforced the way in which it was written. Instead, progressives have proudly waved it as a banner of compassion and an invite to migrants from around the globe to come back to Massachusetts the place they are going to be cared for.
Liberal Massachusetts is the one state within the union with such a regulation.
The phrase ultimately went out that Massachusetts was a mushy contact. So the largely unlawful immigrants got here, and are coming, to the purpose that Healey needed to name a state of emergency and convey out the National Guard to assist take care of the inflow of all of the foreigners making their option to Massachusetts.
The scenario has gotten so unhealthy, and so pricey, that Healey final week introduced that the state can not assure shelter or housing for any extra arrivals.
She made no point out of the social influence the immigrants have had on the communities the place they’re being housed in motels, or what’s going to occur to immigrants who carry on coming.
Currently there are some 7,023 immigrant households within the state’s shelter/welfare system, or some 23,000 folks. Of the quantity, 3,300 households live in motels and inns and the remaining are in shelters.
Healey final week introduced that the state has run out of shelter house, service suppliers or funding to proceed housing immigrants. On Nov.1 it won’t add any extra shelter models and restrict the variety of households housed within the system.
The Healey administration will quickly have spent all of the $325 million appropriated in January to take care of the immigrant disaster. Healey, in the meantime, has requested one other $250 million from the Legislature.
“This level of growth is not sustainable,” Healey mentioned. Then, in a blended message, she mentioned, “We are not ending the right to shelter law. We are being very clear, though, that we are not going to be able to guarantee placement to those who are sent here after the end of the month.”
Healey, nonetheless, doesn’t have to finish the shelter regulation, she simply must implement the way in which it was written to cowl homeless Massachusetts residents, not outsiders.
The 1983 regulation, in defining a resident, states that “any such person who enters the Commonwealth solely for the purposes of obtaining such benefits under this chapter shall not be considered a resident.”
The regulation additionally supplies assist for pending homeless households with cash for hire, utility payments, house heating payments, shifting bills and furnishings storage, none of which would seem to use to unlawful immigrant coming to Massachusetts from international locations around the globe.
It is nice, however most likely futile, to maintain asking President Biden for monetary help to take care of the immigration downside.
“We need everyone to understand that we are entering a new phase of this shelter challenge,” Healey mentioned. “Massachusetts will continue to rise to this challenge. That’s who we are. But I want there to be no doubt. This is a federal problem that demands a federal solution.”
For Biden, to provide you with billions in federal cash for Massachusetts and different states burdened with unlawful immigrants, is to confess he created the issue within the first place by opening the borders and permitting folks in who don’t belong right here.
Healey would have been higher off if she demanded Biden shut down the border.
It is simply too unhealthy that Healey continues to be not legal professional basic.
That method she might sue Joe Biden for not imposing Donald Trump’s strict border legal guidelines – the way in which she used to sue President Trump for imposing them.
For Democrats, although, the regulation, like magnificence, is within the eye of the beholder.
Peter Lucas is a veteran Massachusetts political reporter and columnist.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”