Gov. Healey sends delegation to southern border to spread message that Mass. shelters are full

The five-member delegation Gov. Maura Healey sent to Texas started their trip on Sunday to spread the word that Massachusetts shelters are full and can't accommodate the current influx of families crossing the border.

The group, led by the state's emergency assistance director, Scott Rice, began their meetings the next day, according to Healey press secretary Karissa Hand. They plan to return to Massachusetts Wednesday.

Hand said planning for the trip began a few weeks ago, as the administration continues to try to address a lack of capacity in the shelter system, with migrant families still sleeping on the floor of Logan airport, and what Healey's office calls Congress' “continued failure” to pass immigration reform.

The state group plans to connect with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Joint Task Force-North, non-governmental organizations and migrant families at some of the most common points of entry in Texas for families that later arrive in Massachusetts: San Antonio, McAllen, Hidalgo and Brownsville.

"This trip is an important opportunity to meet with families arriving in the U.S. and the organizations that work with them at the border to make sure they have accurate information about the lack of shelter space in Massachusetts,” according to Rice, a retired lieutenant general of the U.S. Air Force. "It is essential that we get the word out that our shelters are full so that families can plan accordingly to make sure they have a safe place to go."

Republican state Sen. Peter Durant said Massachusetts has a reputation among migrants as one of the best places to secure resources: food, a place to stay, even legal and financial support from the state. Durant said the state needs to change course if it wants to limit the number of arrivals.

“Unless you amend the 'right to shelter' law or start cutting back … the benefits that are available, you can say ‘the inn is full’ all you want, but they’ll keep coming,” Durant said in an interview Tuesday.

Durant said he questions whether the visit will actually discourage people from trying to seek shelter here.

“You go to the border and you start talking to NGOs and government organizations and say, 'Don’t send them to Massachusetts' — I don’t see how that actually works," he said. “If I’m crossing the border, and I’m looking for the best place possible to go, I’m going to go to the place with the most benefits, the place that I can get the most services … and clearly that’s been Massachusetts.”

Several advocates for immigrants and Democratic lawmakers declined to comment or did not return requests for comment on the Texas excursion.

In a press release, the state Republican Party blasted the Texas trip as a “publicity stunt.” MassGOP Chair Amy Carnevale said the Healey administration’s recent efforts to slow the number of immigrant families entering the state emergency shelter system was “attempting to put a Band-Aid on a solution that requires major surgery.”

“We would, at the Republican Party, advise the Healey-Driscoll administration to go back to the drawing board and address the 'right to shelter' law in a more fundamental way,” Carnevale said in an interview Tuesday.

Healey's office said the state's delegation to the border would visit the San Antonio airport, Centro de Bienvenida/San Antonio Migrant Resource Center and Shelter, Ursula Processing Facility in McAllen, Hidalgo Port of Entry and Brownsville Migrant Welcome Center. In addition to Rice, the group includes the emergency assistance incident command deputy director, pre-shelter policy lead for incident command, executive director of the state Office of Refugees and Immigrants and strategy manager at the Division of Housing Stabilization.

The state has faced record-high demand for the emergency shelter system over the past year. Healey declared a state of emergency last summer, and in the fall implemented a cap of 7,500 families in the state's system.

New immigrants make up about half of the families in the Massachusetts shelter system, according to the most recent data from the state.

Healey and the Legislature agreed this spring to impose a limit on how long families can stay in state shelter, capping it at nine months. State guidance released this month said families who have been in state shelter for longer than nine months could begin receiving notices by early July that they have 90 days to leave and must find other housing. The law allows the state to remove no more than 150 families per month, in addition to those who leave on their own accord.

In its announcement of the trip to Texas, Healey's office said the number of families exiting the shelter system "has steadily increased each month, with more than 331 families leaving in May — the highest number in years."

Healey has previously pressed the federal government to take action on immigration, including advocating for Congress to pass a bipartisan border security and foreign aid bill — which ultimately failed — and pressing Biden to speed up work permits for immigrants.

With reporting from State House News Service's Colin A. Young