Gov. Maura Healey has gone down an immigration rabbit hole with seemingly no strategy to climb out of it – refusing to acknowledge the depth of the migrant crisis that is jeopardizing her political future.
As we go into the summer months and shelter residents are sweltering and have nowhere to go, the crisis is reaching critical mass with Healey frantically scrambling to contain it.
What is the Democratic governor’s plan? Go on more taxpayer funded junkets to Italy? Make more minor tweaks to the right to shelter law?
She could stand on her podium and demand Democratic lawmakers repeal Massachusetts’ law, but she is such a strict liberal ideologue that’s not likely.
So instead Healey is panicking and moving sex offenders out of the shelters without notifying migrants and trying to reopen recreation centers that were housing families this winter and spring. All with no transparency or notification to residents and town officials.
Reports of disturbances at shelters continue to grow, putting a massive strain on Massachusetts towns and cities and emergency responders.
She and state taxpayers are now stuck with the $1 billion a year problem, and the thousands of migrants and their families are living in unsafe conditions at local hotels and makeshift shelters. Healey is literally putting kids’ lives at risk.
It’s not sustainable from an economic or public health point of view.
If there is a strategy behind what she’s doing it’s not entirely clear. If she’s trying to play to a national audience that seems very risky.
Immigration could be the downfall for Joe Biden so why is she riding the issue so hard? The migrants have become her liberal calling card.
Why is Biden losing black and Latino voters? Because of the massive influx of immigrants and worries about the economy.
Even the Democratic president realizes he needs to do something to salvage the election, announcing he is tightening the border on the eve of his first debate with Donald Trump.
But Healey seemingly has no such failsafe plan, except to hope the federal government somehow steps in to help financially.
Maybe Biden should make a personal visit to some of these shelters when he’s in Massachusetts on Tuesday. He can get a first hand look at what an immigration disaster his administration has presided over.
And Maura Healey can use the visit to make a personal appeal for help. She needs it badly.
