Migrants Being Evicted From Boston’s Logan Airport

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Earlier this month, we discussed the situation at Boston’s Logan International Airport, where illegal migrants have been camping out on the floors each night before being taken on buses for day trips to migrant care facilities during the day. This was an untenable situation from the beginning, with incidents of theft and unsanitary conditions riling up the legitimate travelers seeking to fly in and out of the city. Now, Governor Maura Healey has announced that the unofficial airport shelter program will be coming to an end on July 6. Buses will no longer be provided and the migrants will need to evacuate from the terminals. The one thing she failed to indicate during the announcement was where the migrants were supposed to go. The state-run shelters remain full to the brim. Migrant advocates are up in arms and the Healey administration doesn’t appear to have any answers for them. (Boston Globe)

The Healey administration said Friday that homeless and migrant families would no longer be allowed to sleep at Logan International Airport, its latest policy change intended to lessen the strain on state resources as the number of new arrivals continues to overwhelm the emergency shelter system.

The announcement, effective July 9, follows a trip by administration members to five Texas towns near the US-Mexico border to educate border officials and migrant families about “the lack of shelter availability in Massachusetts.”

For months, sleeping bags, air mattresses, and blankets have become a familiar sight in the international terminal where families have been sleeping while awaiting placement in a state-run emergency shelter.

In a seemingly desperate effort to stop Boston’s facilities from overflowing further, Massachusetts officials have been traveling to the southern border to deliver a message to the migrants. There is no more room at the inn. You need to look elsewhere. But that message doesn’t appear to be resonating because migrants continue to arrive in Boston. It is also unclear where “elsewhere” might be for the rest of the arriving migrants. All of the major cities have long since run out of space and people are camping out in public parks and on the sidewalks. Heading for the suburbs is not a solution because few such areas have anywhere near the resources available to major urban centers. 

Healey’s staff is describing this decision as being “in the best interest of families and travelers,” as well as the staff at Logan. They are defending the decision by saying that an airport ” is not an appropriate place for people to seek shelter.” That’s obviously true, but what is the alternative? The resources simply do not exist to begin throwing up huge new blocks of public housing where this many people could live. Even if you could find the resources and a location willing to accept them, such projects take years or even decades to be approved and get underway. 

The situation in Boston may provide one of the best examples yet of how state and municipal leaders, particularly Democrats, are approaching these challenges from entirely the wrong angle. They continue to focus on finding places for these illegal migrants to live and resources to provide for their needs. But the migrants are more than an eyesore. They came to the country illegally so they are criminals even if they aren’t currently engaged in waves of other types of crimes. They suck up resources that are already strained when trying to meet the needs of citizens, particularly the homeless. Existing immigration laws allow for such people to be removed from the country. That needs to be the focus.

That should be the message for the Governor and the Mayor of Boston. You have an airport and it already contains hundreds of migrants every night. Use that airport. Load those people up on planes and fly them to Mexico City or San Salvadore or Ankora or anywhere else that’s convenient. Of course, that’s not going to be a permanent solution until we finish building the wall on the southern border and convince Canada to start doing their fair share to secure the situation up north. If we don’t do that, many of those migrants will simply return again.