The Massachusetts Republican Party has demanded “transparency” from Gov. Maura Healey’s (D) administration over an alleged “$1 billion in secret migrant crisis spending” by submitting a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on Tuesday.
Healey has tripled the Bay State’s budget for spending on migrant shelters but is stonewalling requests for an accounting of how she has spent the previous $1 billion on migrant housing, Breitbart News reported in August.
In one case, the Boston Globe revealed that the state shelled out a whopping $16.3 million to rent out a Boston hotel for illegals but did not reveal where the money went after being asked to share the information via a FOIA request that the publication submitted.
“The secrecy is extreme even in Massachusetts, a state with a poor track record of providing government records for public scrutiny,” the outlet stated.
MassGOP Chair Amy Carnevale announced that the party filed its own FOIA requests to seek “full disclosure on the vendors involved in the migrant crisis, including their payments, as well as detailed information on the 600 incidents involving police, fire, and medical emergencies in state-funded emergency housing” in a press release:
The Healey-Driscoll Administration has shrouded nearly $1 billion dollars spent in secrecy, leaving Massachusetts residents in the dark. They have withheld critical information on 600 incidents involving police, fire, and EMTs. Blocking journalists at every turn, the administration has obstructed the flow of information to the public. This call for transparency is underscored by the efforts of Senator Tarr and the Senate GOP caucus, who proposed an amendment to the Senate budget requiring all services for the emergency shelter system to be subject to competitive bidding and posted on Open Checkbook. This amendment, aimed at ensuring accountability and efficiency, was unfortunately blocked by the Democratic supermajority. Similar efforts were proposed by the House GOP caucus but were also blocked.
Today, the Massachusetts Republican Party is standing against the veil of secrecy and the obstructionist efforts of the Healey-Driscoll Administration and the Democratic supermajority. We stand with the Massachusetts press corps in declaring: enough is enough. The public deserves transparency. Release the details on the vendors profiting from this crisis and the public safety issues affecting our communities. On behalf of Massachusetts residents, we are demanding accountability.
The quest for answers comes soon after a late July report from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) said that Massachusetts taxpayers have already lost more than $1 billion to the emergency shelter system that has been “overwhelmed with the task of housing thousands of newly arrived migrants, some who entered illegally and some who arrived under one of the Biden administration’s controversial parole programs.”
The report also said that state budget officials predict that another $1.8 billion will be spent on the crisis over the next two years.
“The number of illegal and inadmissible migrants living in Massachusetts is about 355,000, with about 50,000 new arrivals since 2021,” the center added — noting that 10,000 migrants were minors, with 8,500 being unaccompanied.
