Sanctuary states and cities are suffer the horrific consequences of their actions. Eventually it's the citizens that experience the heartache and pain of the government actions.

 

Democratic Gov. Healey slammed for closing rec center in black neighborhood to house immigrants

By Peyton Sorosinski January 31, 2024 washingtonexaminer.com

Residents of a Boston neighborhood are fuming after Gov. Maura Healey (D-MA) demanded a popular sports recreational building be used to house the state’s influx of immigrants.

Healey insisted the Melnea A. Cass Recreational Complex in Roxbury, a hub for young and old residents to enjoy physical activities, would become a shelter on Wednesday for immigrants who had been sleeping on the floor of Logan International Airport.

“We’re here today because we really don’t have a choice. … Families continue to come into this country. They continue to come into Massachusetts,” Healey said at a press conference Wednesday.

Gov. Maura Healey (D-MA), front, and Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, center left, take questions from reporters Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024, after touring the Cass Recreational Complex in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston. (AP Photo/Steven Senne) 

 Residents of Roxbury, a majority-black community, voiced their frustrations at a virtual community forum Monday, asking why their treasured recreational facility had to bear the brunt of the state’s migrant crisis.

“Roxbury is on fire! On fire! And this is a wake-up call,” a resident said at the forum.

“The state is taking care of the migrants, so who’s taking care of the kids in Roxbury?” another resident added.

The Roxbury facility has become the fourth “safety-net site” for immigrants in Massachusetts as they wait to be placed in the state’s shelter system. Traditional shelters in Massachusetts reached capacity at 7,500 families, with much of the overfill turning toward waiting rooms in hospitals and church halls, the Daily Mail reported.

Massachusetts is currently housing 1,000 immigrants after Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) bussed immigrants from the Lone Star State to blue states that professed to have sanctuary cities in an effort to share the burden of his state’s border crisis.

“For the first community where this is being proposed to be Roxbury, a community that over so many decades has faced disinvestment, redlining, disproportionate outcomes, it’s very painful, and it’s painfully familiar,” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said Monday on a WBUR Radio Boston program.

“It feels like a particular inflection point when we are now taking offline buildings that are beloved and well used and dedicated to community programs because we now have such a crisis,” she said.

Healey told residents at the forum that the facility would be open again to the public by June. In the meantime, she admitted she was unsure of what to do for programs that had been uprooted, saying she would try calling some universities.

In the latest report, the migrant crisis has cost Massachusetts $325 million, and state officials estimated that it could cost the state nearly $1 billion this year, according to WWLP.