Migrant families set up camp in Boston airport as Bay State overwhelmed by arrivals: ‘We need DC to act’
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Nearly 100 migrants have spent several nights sleeping on the floor at Logan International Airport in Boston, Mass. Dozens of migrant families have set up camp in Boston’s international airport as Massachusetts struggles to find shelter for the booming migrant population.
Nearly 100 people, including many young children, have been sleeping on cots on the floor at Logan International Airport’s international terminal in scenes eerily similar to those at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.
The migrants were huddled in hats and blankets as they lay next to piles of their belongings in footage taken by CBS Boston.
Massachusetts State Police officers are being paid overtime to patrol the area, Gov. Maura Healey said Monday — blaming the Biden administration for the mess.
“We need DC to act. We need Congress to act,” she said when asked about the airport chaos.
“The path is there in terms of what needs to be done to fix the border situation, to change some of the asylum processes and to get much-needed funding to interior states who have had to shoulder the burden for a problem that is geopolitical and is not [of] the state’s making.”
Healey is asking President Biden for an additional $250 million to address the crisis — though her office estimates the surge in migrants could cost the state $915 million next year.
She has proposed paying for some of the aid with $700 million in state surplus funds, and has previously declared a state of emergency in the Bay State.
The governor said at the time that 80% more migrants arrived by August than in the previous year.
“It’s exponentially more than our state has ever served in our emergency assistance program,” she said.
The migrants were seen huddled in hats
and blankets as they lay next to their belongings in piles on the floor
in footage taken by CBS Boston.
The airport is often the first stop for migrants arriving from Haiti and Latin America.
The images come just months after Massachusetts Port Authority Interim CEO Ed Freni warned that the airport is “not an appropriate place” for migrants to stay, as 20 to 25 were arriving at Logan each day in November.
The airport is often the first stop for migrants arriving from Haiti and Latin America, he explained.
“When they come to Logan, we meet them and we try to assist them, but we have to emphasize that Logan is not an appropriate place to house people,” Freni told CBS News at the time.
The state, however, is running out of options.
It hit its capacity to house 7,500 families in emergency shelters in November, and is now putting families on a waitlist.
Many of the dozens of families who are sheltering at the airport have young children with them. 
Massachusetts hit its capacity to house
7,500 families in emergency shelters in November, and is now putting
families on a waitlist.
Some are staying at local churches, while others are being housed in government conference rooms, according to WBUR.
A record-setting 276,000 asylum seekers entered the US from Mexico in December, capping a record-breaking year — and forcing Biden to admit that “massive changes” in immigration policy are necessary.
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