People should not be surprised that Gov. Maura Healey called out the National Guard to deal with the state’s illegal immigrant crisis.
Yes, she might say, the state is burdened, but that’s how cities grow.
No, the surprise would have been if she sent the 250 troopers to El Paso to deal with the nation’s illegal immigration crisis at the border.
A bigger surprise would be if she sent the illegal immigrants back to where they came from.
But that was never in the cards, nor will it ever be.
Joe Biden, bent on wrecking the country, opened the gates and there is no one around to close them.
Now millions of illegal immigrants from across the world, mostly poor and unskilled, have inundated the country and nobody knows who they are.
And if you criticize it, you are labeled anti-immigrant even though you support legal immigration and not the behind the back, deceitful and secret immigration policies of the Biden administration.
Instead of defending the country and the state from foreign threat or invasion these guardsmen are now on duty assisting illegal immigrant families staying in overflowing hotels and motels across the state.
And, speaking of secrets, the Healey administration is in behind-the-scenes talks with UMass President Marty Meehan, a Lowell native, to take over UMass/Lowell’s 252-room Lowell Inn and Conference Center and use it to house some 800 illegal immigrants from Haiti and Venezuela.
UMass/Lowell students living there have already been kicked out and reservations made by parents and guests have been cancelled. Even reservations for a block or rooms for an Oct. 7 wedding party have been scrubbed.
There are about 6,000 illegal immigrant families, including children and pregnant women, in emergency state funded shelters. Some 2,400 of them are in state-subsidized hotels and motels, and more are coming.
And why not? Once here they get free housing, free food, free medical care, free schooling, free clothes, security, phones, drivers licenses and interpreters.
The word has gone out that Massachusetts is a “right to shelter” state, which must provide emergency shelter to homeless families.
The law was passed in 1983 when Gov. Healey was a 12-year-old girl growing up in Hampton Falls, N.H.
Then Gov. Michale S. Dukakis and the Legislature sought housing for Massachusetts patients who had recently been released from state mental institutions that had been shut down.
It was not designed to house illegal immigrants from around the world. I covered the law’s passing.
But the word is out. If you are going to enter America illegally, Massachusetts is going to give you the best deal you can get, and that includes New York and Washington.
Right now caring for the influx of illegal immigrants is costing taxpayers $45 million a month, and rising, while homeless veterans and drug addicts are sleeping in the streets. And things are going to get worse before they get any better.
But it is not Gov. Healey’s fault. She is new to the job and could use all the help and suggestions she can get. One would be to stop waving illegal immigrants in.
Another would be to get MassPort to drop its plan to build 27 new hangars at Hanscom Field in Bedford to house the growing number of private jets that the wealthy and well-connected fly in and out of the airport. The hangars could instead be converted into temporary housing.
It would help the climate change effort too since private jets emit at least 10 times more carbon pollution per person than commercial jets.
She could also seek to amend the “right to shelter” law to ensure that it applies only to Massachusetts citizens.
The easiest thing she could do, though, is tell Joe Biden to shut the border down.
But being the progressive that she is, the easiest thing is also the hardest.
Besides, that’s how cities grow.
Peter Lucas is a veteran Massachusetts political reporter and columnist.