Around 100 migrant men, women and children are camped out in Boston’s main international airport, with the state’s shelter system having reached capacity in November and the governor begging the federal government to do more to help.
Footage obtained by CBS News showed rows of people sleeping on the floor. One woman, Keturah Douze, said she had been collecting hygiene products to try and help them.
‘While they’re at the airport they don’t have access to a shower, so there’s like some shower wipes, little towels, just to clean up while they wait,’ she said.
The scenes in Boston’s airport replicate those in Chicago’s O’Hare. As of January 4, there were 216 migrants sleeping in the airport, WGN 9 reported.
Massachusetts’ shelters reached capacity in November, with 7,500 families in its system. Some are now being housed in hospital waiting rooms and church halls.
Migrants are seen sleeping out in Boston’s Logan Airport, in the international terminal
Maura Healey, the Democrat governor, on Monday asked the federal government for more help with the migrant arrivals
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The governor, Maura Healey, a Democrat, on Monday demanded the federal government do more to help. In November, when migrants were stranded at the airport and seeking refuge, the CEO of the airport said the situation was ‘not sustainable’.
‘We need D.C. to act. We need Congress to act,’ she said at a press conference.
‘The path is there in terms of what needs to be done to fix the border situation, to fix some of the asylum processes and to get much needed funding to some of the interior states who have had to shoulder the burden for a problem that is geopolitical and is not the state’s making.’
Healey asked for an additional $250 million in funds to address the crisis this year.
Her office estimates the crisis could cost Massachusetts $915 million next year.
Healey praised the staff at the airport and the state police for their help with the migrants.
‘The airport has been a wonderful partner and I really want to thank the folks at the airport who are doing a wonderful job including members of the state police who are working their regular shifts but who are managing the inflow and outflow of folks from the airport,’ she said.
Migrants are pictured sleeping at Logan Airport in November. The CEO said the situation was not sustainable, and cleared them away, but they have returned
Migrants are seen camping out at a state transportation building in Boston, as the shelters are full
In November, Massport interim CEO Ed Freni told reporters that the airport is ‘not an appropriate place’ for migrants to stay, as 20-25 were arriving a day, and some were seen sleeping at the facility.
‘When they come to Logan we meet them and we try to assist them, but we have to emphasize that Logan is not an appropriate place to house people,’ Freni told reporters.
The airport works with partners to transport the migrants to welcome centers and is looking to ‘other solutions in the future,’ Freni said.
Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, has since 2022 been sending busloads of migrants from his state north, to make Democrat mayors and governors share his struggle – and to put pressure on Joe Biden.
The policy has worked: Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, has been particularly outspoken in demanding that Biden, a fellow Democrat, do more.
New York City has seen 33,600 of the 90,000 migrants sent by Abbott north. The majority of the rest have gone to Chicago and Washington DC.
Abbott has not sent buses to Boston, but many migrants, struggling in those already-overrun cities, have landed in Boston.
In August, Healey declared a state of emergency for her state.
She said 80 percent more immigrants had arrived compared to the previous yet.
‘It’s exponentially more than our state has ever served in our emergency assistance program,’ she said. ‘These numbers are being driven by a surge in new arrivals in our country who have been through some of the hardest journeys imaginable.’