Massachusetts State sanctuary policies have turned into a nightmare - evidence found in the following extensive news article.

 

Blaze News original: Inside Massachusetts migrant shelters where crime flourishes under Democrats' watch

Candace Hathaway January 16, 2025 theblaze.com

Sanctuary policies fail American citizens and the illegal aliens they supposedly protect.

Massachusetts' sanctuary laws have allowed the state's shelters to devolve into a breeding ground for criminal activity, all while taxpayers foot the $1 billion bill.

Democratic leaders have long since claimed that sanctuary policies, which prevent local law enforcement agencies from coordinating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, protect foreign nationals who are contributing members of the community.

While illegal aliens were promised a sanctuary, a new report from the Boston Herald revealed that the situation in Massachusetts' state-run emergency shelters has turned into more of a nightmare.

‘I had three women tell me they were raped by residents of the shelter.’

A stack of incident reports obtained by the news outlet through a public records request showed that the state's sanctuary policies are failing not only American citizens but also the illegal aliens they supposedly protect.

Optics over outcomes

Governor Maura Healey (D) has faced repeated criticism for her handling of the immigration crisis since she was sworn in to office in 2023.

In November, following President-elect Donald Trump's election victory, Healey dug in her heels on immigration, emphatically vowing to use "every tool in the toolbox" to "protect" illegal aliens from the incoming administration's mass deportation efforts. She insisted that her state police would "absolutely not" be cooperating with Trump's ICE agents.

Healey's post-election statements, up until that point, aligned with her long-standing support for the state's sanctuary laws.

However, within the same month, she announced plans to slash state-run shelter costs and shorten stay limits for families with children. Her administration stated that it would begin phasing out the use of hotels and motels to house individuals amid the ongoing immigration crisis.

Just one month later, Healey appeared to try to distance herself from — or at the very least backpedal on her support for — sanctuary policies.

In two separate back-to-back interviews, she insisted that Massachusetts was "not a sanctuary state."

Healey's claims seem far from reality, considering that Massachusetts does not obey ICE detainer requests and it is the nation's only right-to-shelter state, requiring it to provide housing to all pregnant women and families with children under 21 years old. Such shelter guarantees have been extended to illegal aliens under the Healey administration.

Furthermore, the right-to-shelter law does not just require Massachusetts to provide shelter but explicitly demands that the taxpayer-funded accommodations include refrigeration and basic cooking facilities. Some of the emergency shelter locations, such as hotels and motels, lack these amenities, requiring the state to expend further resources to pay vendors to deliver food to illegal alien residents.

Healey told the Boston Herald in December that the state's "emergency shelter system really was meant for Massachusetts families who were experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity and needed a place to go that was temporary."

She also claimed that "violent criminals should be deported if they're not here lawfully," calling for local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies to work together to remove such threats from the community.

Healey further stated that she hoped Trump would strengthen the border and that the two could find common ground on the immigration crisis.

When sanctuary stories don't align

While the governor stated one thing, ICE and local reports shed light on a different reality.

Despite Healey's claims that Massachusetts is not a sanctuary for illegal aliens, ICE released a report in August declaring that the Plymouth County Superior Court of Brockton ignored its detainer request, releasing a foreign national on a $500 bond after he had been arrested for aggravated rape of a child. The alleged crime reportedly took place in the Rockland shelter, where the victim, a 15-year-old girl, was residing.

After his release, ICE located and arrested Cory Bernard Alvarez, a 26-year-old Haitian national, near his residence in Brockton. Alvarez was allowed into the country through the Biden administration's CHNV program, which allowed the entry of 30,000 individuals monthly from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

The federal immigration agency similarly reported that Dorchester District Court also ignored one of its detainer requests, releasing an illegal alien who had been accused of kidnapping and attempted rape.

Emilio Jose Pena-Casilla, a 46-year-old Dominican national, was charged in Massachusetts with "assault to rape, kidnapping, two counts of indecent assault and battery on a person 14 or older, and intimidating a witness/juror/police/court official," according to ICE.

Despite the lengthy list of alleged heinous offenses, he was released on bail with a GPS tracker the day after ICE sent its detainer request.

Fortunately, ICE agents were able to apprehend the suspect without Massachusetts' cooperation, and he remains in federal immigration custody.

In late December, the Revere Police Department arrested Leonardo Andujar Sanchez, a 28-year-old Dominican national who had entered the country illegally.

Sanchez was apprehended at a Quality Inn in Revere, one of the 128 hotels in Massachusetts functioning as an emergency shelter.

According to authorities, Sanchez had a loaded AR-15 and roughly 10 pounds of fentanyl in his possession.

Healey has claimed that those residing in state-run shelters are subject to background checks, prompting the Massachusetts House Republican Caucus to question how Sanchez was allowed into the Quality Inn.

‘She is 100% lying about that.’

The governor claimed that Sanchez had not applied for the state's emergency assistance program but was residing in the shelter with a family unit.

Last week, ICE lodged a detainer request against Sanchez. At this time, he is in state custody, and it remains to be seen whether local officials will comply with the request and turn him over to federal agents.

Sanchez's arrest drew national attention, which may have prompted Healey to announce that the state would perform sweeps of its shelter units, beginning with the Revere location.

Healey deflected any blame for the situation, instead pointing fingers at the Biden administration for the ongoing immigration crisis and its overwhelming financial burden on Massachusetts residents.

Inside Healey's shelters

More than 1,000 incidents were reported at Massachusetts' state-run shelters from 2022 through 2024, according to records obtained by the Boston Herald and reviewed by Blaze News.

The more than 3,000 pages of incident reports detailed a long list of alleged offenses, including death threats, theft, assault, drugs, and rape.

One of the most alarming reports detailed allegations that a father residing in one of the state-run shelters had raped his minor daughter "multiple times, both on the journey to the U.S. and in the U.S.," resulting in her pregnancy.

At the time, Jon Fetherston was the former director of the migrant shelter, a Holiday Inn, and he was the one who reported the father to authorities.

‘Nobody was being screened.’

Fetherston told Blaze News, "I saw domestic violence. I saw gang violence. I had three women tell me they were raped by residents of the shelter. Two, I personally took to the police station, and a third, I had Department of Children and Families remove her from the shelter because she was raped by her own father, who got her pregnant."

The father became "very agitated and started yelling at" staff when his daughter was removed from his custody, according to an incident report. He was ejected from the shelter and offered a taxpayer-funded ride to another shelter location, which also housed women.

Fetherston explained that the "big issue" with the shelter was that he was not provided with the resources necessary to manage safety. He stated that the shelter had third-party security but that the security company struggled with staffing issues and the personnel were not always qualified.

He noted that the criminal activity he witnessed at the shelter spilled into the community.

When asked about Healey's claims that all those residing in the shelters are vetted, Fetherston told Blaze News, "She is 100% lying about that."

He stated there were "numerous" occasions when families scheduled to arrive at his facility for shelter accommodations never showed up. The state told Fetherston not to "worry about it" and that a new family would be sent to the shelter the same day, he said.

"Another family would show up and tell me their name, and their name would be different than the IDs that they presented me. So, no, nobody was being vetted. Nobody was being screened," Fetherston said.

He called the current shelter system "pure chaos," adding that the state needs to implement proper vetting procedures.

Fetherston questioned whether Healey's shelter sweeps were actually happening.

"I'll believe it when I see it, because I don't think it's going to happen. I think she's just placating the public with that," he said. "Her words and her actions do not match."

"There's 3,000 pages worth of documents of heinous crimes — sexual abuse, rape, drugs — and you're allowing it," Fetherston said, referring to Healey. "But, more importantly, you're making the taxpayer fund this."

The state's taxpayers spent about $1 billion last year supporting the costly shelter system. Following the announcement of the inspections, Healey requested another $425 million from the state's reserve account to keep its emergency shelter program operating for another six months.

"Maura Healey has decided to protect criminals over the safety and welfare of women and children in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She's put every woman and child in the state in jeopardy, because we don't know who these people are," Fetherston added. "Eventually, something horrible is going to happen."

"Shame on the governor," he remarked.

Fetherston told Blaze News that he had a brief conversation with Healey in December 2023 during the Army-Navy football game at Gillette Stadium, where he expressed his concerns to her about shelter safety. He said Healey instructed him to contact her office for further discussion. However, after he reached out several times in the following weeks, Healey's office never returned his calls.

‘We are going to get to the bottom of why that wasn't happening.’

Paul Craney of the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance called Healey's "failure to ensure" safety at the state's shelters "a shocking betrayal of both the residents relying on these facilities and the taxpayers funding them."

Craney told Blaze News, "The Massachusetts right-to-shelter law was originally passed to ensure that the indigent poor of the Commonwealth wouldn't be left out in the cold, not to act as a clearing house for incoming migrants. Instead of being safe havens for people in trouble, these shelters are now hot spots for criminal activity and danger."

"It's unacceptable that it took years of disturbing incidents, including theft, assaults, and even sexual assault, to prompt action," he continued. "Governor Healey can order all of the sweeps and background checks she wants, but when it boils right down to it, we have no idea who the people crossing the border really are."

Craney questioned how the state could run proper, thorough background checks when some individuals have provided false names.

"Massachusetts families deserve better than an administration that prioritizes excuses over solutions. Governor Healey needs to stop the blame game and reform the generous benefits and sanctuary state policies that are pulling so many illegal migrants towards the Massachusetts shelter system," he remarked.

From bad to worse

In the wake of the release of the shelter incident reports and Sanchez's arrest, Healey made an alarming confession.

After repeatedly claiming that those residing in state-run shelters must undergo background checks, she stated on January 10 that she had recently learned Criminal Offender Record Information checks had not always been conducted.

"We are going to get to the bottom of why that wasn't happening," Healey stated. "CORI checks were being performed at those temporary respite centers, the overflow sites where new arrivals were going, and it was my understanding that they were being conducted system-wide."

The massive oversight prompted Healey to tap former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis to conduct an independent investigation into the matter, as well as provide recommendations on how the state could improve its security protocols.

A spokesperson for Healey's office told Blaze News, "As a former attorney general and prosecutor, the governor has no tolerance for any criminal activity at these facilities. It's why our administration has taken a number of actions to protect safety in our communities."

The governor's office noted that shelter providers are required to report criminal activity, and "every shelter resident is already subjected to background checks, including SORI [Sex Offender Registry Information] checks and a [sic] warrant checks."

The spokesperson noted that CORI checks were previously only required for those entering the state's overflow sites but that Healey extended the requirement to all shelters.

The state's inspection of its shelters is "almost complete," the spokesperson told Blaze News.

"We will be phasing out the use of hotel shelters by the end of 2025," the statement continued. "And for the more than 6,000 residents who we have helped get work authorizations, every one of them is required to undergo additional vetting including fingerprinting."

"In the instance of violations of shelter policy, residents are disciplined, including up to removal from the program. Incidents that allege criminal conduct are referred to law enforcement," the spokesperson told Blaze News.

 

An outstanding article by Todd Bensman of Center For Immigration Studies!

 

As Trump 2.0 Approaches, NGOs Continue To Fund Mass Migration With U.S. Tax Dollars

By  Todd Bensman Jan 14, 2025 DailyWire.com

https://www.dailywire.com/news/as-trump-2-0-approaches-ngos-continue-to-fund-mass-migration-with-u-s-tax-dollars

New U.N. planning docs show billions of dollars budgeted for debit cards, transportation, shelter, food and cash.

AUSTIN, Texas – The large, organized constellation of United Nations and nongovernmental organization (NGO) agencies sees a rosy future for itself even under Donald Trump, having already directed billions of mostly U.S. taxpayer dollars into supporting millions of illegal southern border crossing trips during President Joe Biden’s term.

Perhaps, in part, to keep the migratory pressure on America’s southern border, using U.S. taxpayer money, as Trump mounts a planned border crackdown this year.

The U.N.-organized conglomerate recently released its 2025-2026 “Regional Refugee and Migrant Response Plan (RMRP),” which is a budget needs analysis for Latin America migration support developed during the U.S. presidential campaign but recognizes in its published iteration that Trump was re-elected.

Credit: r4v.info/en

The document calls for maintaining spending levels as high as when a mass migration torrent was at full throttle in recent years. It wants $1.4 billion to support 2.3 million foreign nationals from throughout the world who will be on the move toward the U.S. southern border through 17 Latin American countries, and $1.2 billion in 2026. That’s down from 2024’s $1.6 billion and 2023’s $1.72 billion.

The 14 U.N. and 230 NGO agencies (a list of these agencies can be found on page 434) will use the funding in 2025 to support 14 different forms of migration or refugee assistance in the hemisphere, including, for instance, $259 million in “cash, voucher assistance and multi-purpose cash assistance” to 390,000 foreign nationals during 2025. That money will be dished out as rechargeable cash debit cards, “cash in envelopes,” bank transfers, and mobile transfers for whatever migrants might need on the road.

They also call for $134 million in food provisions for 851,600 people, $13.5 million in “humanitarian transportation” to 94,800 foreign nationals, $297 million to 735,000 people for shelter such as hotels and longer-term rental properties, $150 million in health services to 1.4 million people, and millions more for a half dozen other kinds of migration needs on the trails.

Credit: Todd Bensman

Spearheaded in 2019 by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the U.N. International Organization for Migration (IOM), which receive the bulk of their money from the United States, the coordinated RMRP migration support effort initially started to meet the needs of more than seven million Venezuelans who emigrated out of their failing home country. But RMRP planning documents openly acknowledge mission creep to support migrants of all “other nationalities…engaging in transit and onward movements” to the U.S. southern border. In 2023, the U.S. contributed $1.9 billion to the UNHCR, compared to a mere $377 million in 2019. 

The new document notes Trump’s reelection but does not explicitly discuss its 2025-2026 needs in conjunction with Trump’s plans to immediately halt more than three years of an illegal immigration border surge that The New York Times recently concluded in an analysis was the “largest in U.S. history” and was directly caused by “President Biden’s welcoming immigration policy during his first three years in office.”

The group’s chief U.N. bureaucrat makes an oblique reference to a new negativity in “receiving nations” without naming the United States.

“It is essential to change the narrative that underscores the prevalent negative conception of migration agendas as only a source of problems and difficulties and keep striving for bringing to the fore the positive narrative of the contributions they can provide to receiving communities,” wrote Eduardo Stein, the UN’s Joint Special Representative for Venezuelan Refugees and Migrants in the document’s introduction. 

Left unsaid is exactly how the U.N. and NGOs proposing these large ongoing expenditures really view them in light of the anticipated reduction in migration flows expected after Trump’s January 20, 2025 inauguration, when his “detain-and-expel” policies quickly replace Biden’s incentivizing catch-and-release policies.

Already, just the prospect of a Trump administration has vastly reduced international migration flows by more than 40 percent through the Colombia-Panama Darien Gap, while many immigrants in Mexico say they’ll return to their home countries.

The omission of straightforward references to the coming U.S. political pivot on illegal immigration suggests that the group likely assumes funding would be used to sustain migrants while Trump policies compel them to wait in third countries, perhaps waiting for – or even facilitating – Trump policy failure or for a future friendlier U.S. presidency.

HERIKA MARTINEZ/AFP via Getty Images

Regardless of U.N. intent, in the meantime, a potential – even probable – consequence of this continuing level of migration trail support would be to sustain steady pressure on Trump’s border for at least the next two years, perhaps even enough to induce policy failure.

The document seems to suggest some money might fund legal and propaganda operations.

For instance, one activity the group promotes as a high priority is to provide $204 million toward “protection,” topping the list is “legal assistance and counseling” that can counter a regional “shift towards more restrictive and security-focused approaches of managing migration and asylum…,” the document notes on page 77 in a category section titled “Protection.”

The legal assistance and counseling will, it says, reduce risks related to migrant returns to home countries that their advocates would argue were too dangerous, known as “refoulment,” as well as “deportations, and arbitrary and prolonged detentions.” The group will call on academics and human rights organizations in migration trail nations “to ensure visibility of key protection issues affecting refugees and migrants in the region.” Those might include countries the Trump administration plans to diplomatically coerce into helping slow flows.

A Point Of Contention And Potential Republican Action

In recent years, the UN-led conglomerate’s migration support efforts along the migration trails have become politically controversial because of the record-smashing traffic flows, especially among Trump supporters and some hardline border security-minded Republican lawmakers. Some saw the U.S. tax money funding the program as driving a self-destructive mass migration crisis that broadly damaged American national interests and advocated that U.S. money for that be pared back.

Republican lawmakers such as Texas Rep. Lance Gooden even filed a bill to defund the U.N. of U.S. donations, which did not advance when congressional chambers were split between Republicans and Democrats.

Representative Lance Gooden. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

But with the trifecta of a White House and both chambers of Congress in Republican hands as of January 20, the prospects for some kind of funding rollback for this kind of U.N. and NGO support seem more likely. Rep. Gooden told The Daily Wire he would try again under the more favorable new circumstances.

“Under the Biden administration, U.S. dollars are being funneled through the United Nation’s IOM into programs that facilitate and encourage illegal migration into our own country,” Rep. Gooden told The Daily Wire for this report. “I will work with President Trump to ensure that no one cent of American money supports the erosion of our sovereignty. We will end this taxpayer funded invasion.”

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Dr. Nayla Rush, Senior Researcher at the Center for Immigration Studies who focuses on refugee and asylum policy, noted that U.N. and IOM support is necessary to ensure that vulnerable refugees around the world are not left to suffer and perish but also that the UN’s more recent large-scale support for immigrants the agencies well know are illegally crossing borders and intend to illegally enter the United States is different. If that specific kind of U.N. expenditure is not wanted, she said, it may justify policy changes such as forcing greater transparency to ensure U.S. contributions are not used to facilitate illegal immigration and routine accountability.

Creating Migration Pressure On Trump Or Reducing Suffering?

In early 2022, UNHCR spokeswoman for Mexico Silvia Garduno explained that her agency does not look for or consider evidence of illegal immigration but, rather, regards individuals it helps who are moving through as “vulnerable asylum seekers.”

“UNHCR assistance is based strictly on the humanitarian need of individuals in need of international protection,” she said. “UNHRC supports the authorities by providing individuals information on the right to seek asylum and assists individuals while their asylum applications are in process by, for example, referring them to shelters operated by civil society, providing legal assistance, or providing humanitarian support for food and basic needs for the most vulnerable.

(Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

But the group’s own document repeatedly acknowledges knowing that those it helps are moving ever forward over international borders without authorization.

The group is clearly not planning any retreat.

When it started operations in 2019, the conglomerate provided its aid via a network of ad hoc way-stations along known smuggling routes from South America to the northern U.S.-Mexico border.

In recent years, however, the U.N. group has plowed investment funds into large multi-purpose structures like a 75,000-square-foot mega-mall just built in Tapachula, Mexico just north of the Guatemala border.

The UNHCR, IOM, and dozens of private often religion-based NGOs scattered around Tapachula, will work alongside one another under one massive roof here – evidently planning a years-long collaboration.

 

What a disgusting legacy - Biden and his horrific immigration policies!

 

Biden ends term with nearly 11 million illegal border crossers

By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - January 14, 2025

Migrants who crossed the Rio Grande and entered the U.S. from Mexico are lined up for processing by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Sept. 23, 2023, in Eagle Pass, Texas. U.S. authorities say border arrests during July have plummeted to  a new low for Joe Biden’s presidency, raising prospects that a temporary ban on asylum may be lifted soon. The Border Patrol is expected to arrest migrants about 57,000 times during the month, down about 30% from June and the lowest tally since September 2020, when COVID-19 slowed movement across many borders. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

 President Biden will end his term with a record of nearly 11 million illegal immigrants detected during his time in office, according to Homeland Security data released Tuesday.

But the latest numbers show things have improved somewhat from the worst days, with December tallying one of the lowest months of Mr. Biden’s tenure.

Customs and Border Protection said it detected about 125,000 unauthorized migrants try to sneak across the border or enter through an official port of entry in December. That’s down from more than 370,000 a year ago in December 2023 — the worst month on record.

Still, the damage is done, with 10.9 million illegal immigrants detected from February 2021 — the first full month under Mr. Biden’s watch — to this past December, the last full month under his control.

While some have been ousted, some 4 million new illegal immigrants have settled in the U.S. during Mr. Biden’s term, according to estimates from the Center for Immigration Studies.

Mr. Biden took office vowing to reverse Trump administration policies and immediately saw the situation deteriorate.

He spent the rest of his tenure searching for answers. Initially he resisted Trump-style policies but last year began to embrace them, and saw things improve.

“The men and women of CBP are continuing their diligent enforcement efforts – and they are having an impact on community safety and national security,” Pete Flores, acting commissioner at CBP, said in celebrating the December numbers, which were among the lowest of Mr. Biden’s term.

The number of terrorism suspects detected by Border Patrol agents, which at one point neared 30 in a single month, has averaged just three a month for the last half-year.

And Border Patrol agents detected just 47,000 migrants trying to sneak in from Mexico last month, down from about 118,000 in May and a record 250,000 a year ago in December 2023.

At the border with Canada, agents detected just 510 migrants — a drop of 89% compared to June.

Things have also cooled at airports and seaports, where officers saw just 17,000 unauthorized migrants in December, down from nearly 57,000 in June.

The one area that remains persistently high is the official crossings from Mexico into the U.S., where Biden administration “parole” programs continue to entice unauthorized crossers.