The mayor says the city of Woburn can expect about 100 migrant families to join the dozens already there as the state struggles to find shelter for tens of thousands of newly arriving people.

According to Mayor Scott Galvin, the city of 41,000 has already seen 59 migrant families placed in area hotels under the state’s Right to Shelter law, but the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities has informed them that an additional 100 families could arrive very soon.

“The State has also indicated its intention to establish an emergency family shelter in Woburn
for as many as 100 families beginning as early as next week,” the Mayor’s office said in a Monday release.

According to the Mayor, the nation’s immigration policies, when coupled with the state’s requirement that families with children and expecting mothers be provided with a place to live, have created a perfect storm that is battering already hard pressed municipalities.

“Federal inaction on immigration reform has created and worsened a nationwide immigration crisis at our borders, and the State’s “Right to Shelter” law (one of only three in the country) has made Massachusetts an attractive destination for migrants. This one/ two combination is unfairly impacting communities across the Commonwealth,” Galvin’s office wrote.

The Mayor’s office goes out of its way to say that the migrants will be welcomed into the community and that the city will do their best to make their assimilation as smooth as possible, despite the hardship inherent in the task.

“Woburn has always been a welcoming community and its increasingly diverse population has strengthened our City. The effort to assimilate over 100 new migrant families into our community and schools will be challenging but we are prepared to support the Governor and comply with State law during this time of crisis,” he wrote. “As Woburn residents have always done, we will help the new members of our community adjust, feel welcomed, thrive, and become productive residents in our great City.”

Regardless of how welcome the new residents may be, the Mayor said, the state and federal government will need to step up to help make sure the new families can easily settle.

“The City will need State and Federal support to provide the additional City resources needed, to address impacts at the school level, and deliver appropriate levels of public safety services,” he said.

Earlier this month, Gov. Maura Healey declared that a state of emergency existed in Massachusetts as local emergency shelters fill up with an ever-increasing number of migrants arriving from other countries and surging housing costs hurt residents already here.

“These families include newborns, very young children, and expecting mothers. It’s more families than our state has ever served, exponentially more than our state has ever served in our emergency assistance program,” Healey said when making the declaration. “These numbers are being driven by a surge of new arrivals in our country who have been through some of the hardest journeys imaginable.”