Gov. Maura Healey (D, MA) is planning to massively expand the state’s free legal services to illegals housed in state-sponsored shelters in a drive to bestow quasi-legal status upon them and get more of them into the state’s workforce faster.
Healey has also blasted the Biden administration and demanded that Washington work harder to fast track work permits to the illegal border crossers in the care of Bay State authorities and insisted that the inability of illegals to get jobs places a further burden on the state’s immigration services.
Healey stated that the Massachusetts Office for Refugees and Immigrants and the Executive Office of Health and Human Services would work together “with the goal to enable shelter residents to begin working sooner and reduce the strain placed on the emergency assistance system,” the Boston Herald reported.
In a statement, the governor’s office added that the agencies:
…will also receive funding from the state to pay for the filing fees to allow for online application filing, which can help to expedite the work authorization process. The full expansion is expected to cover more than 70 percent of shelters in the state who do not have service providers.
Healey insisted that thousands of illegals have come to Massachusetts to build a new life and she intends “to help people make this a reality as soon as possible.”
To implement that “reality,” Healey says her representatives will fan out to shelters to explain to illegals that they have more options.
“Lawyers will meet with families in shelter, assess their eligibility for work authorization and asylum, and assist in filing the necessary applications online,” the administration explained. “Resettlement agencies will also conduct followups to make sure that families attend any essential appointments needed to finalize the process.”
Healey’s office has been joined by a growing list of state lawmakers demanding that the Biden administration allow the illegals in state care to jump the line for work permits.
Both Democrat and Republican lawmakers are urging the Biden administration to bestow quasi-legal status on illegals in state care so they can get jobs, the Herald said in a separate report.
The lawmakers sent a letter to the Biden White House and Congress to enact immigration reforms to “establish a robust domestic workforce.” The letter adds:
We the undersigned members of the Massachusetts General Court respectfully urge the United States Congress to act expeditiously to enact legislation relative to comprehensive immigration reform and, in doing so, help resolve the dual crises of a dysfunctional immigration system and a rapidly-devolving domestic workforce shortage.
The Herald also reported that there are more than 6,500 families of illegal border crossers who have flooded the state and are being housed in the state’s emergency shelters.
Meanwhile, shelters are growing all across the state. Only days ago it was reported that scores of illegals have been building up in Boston’s Logan Airport, as 70 to 100 more border crossers land there every day, with one report saying that there have been at least 1,600 new arrivals since July 11 alone.
The shelters and new arrivals are also building to a political crisis for Democrats. Residents of the tony Cape Cod area have begun pushing their locally elected officials to protest to Healey’s office over the dozens of border crossers flooding their ritzy community.
Early this month a plan to house illegals at Yarmouth Resort was abandoned when residents rose up in opposition.
The state’s shelter system has become so overloaded that Healey began urging regular citizens to take in illegals into their own homes to help alleviate the shelter crisis.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, or Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston
