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On Tuesday, Biden issued an executive order that would deny asylum to most migrants when illegal border crossings exceed 2,500 a day for a week. Daily figures are higher than that now, which means the order can go into effect right away. The sweeping restrictions come on the heels of two failed efforts in Congress this year to pass a bipartisan immigration overhaul.
Some critics noted that Biden’s decision shared strong similarities to former president Donald Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy on border crossings that resulted in the detention of thousands of migrants, with small children being separated from their parents and held in federal facilities. The practice was blocked by federal courts and condemned by Democrats, including Healey in 2018 when she was Massachusetts attorney general and called the separation of families “inhumane and immoral.”
While Biden’s policy relies on the same authority that the Trump administration invoked to deny asylum to those who crossed between ports of entry, the Biden restrictions include exceptions for unaccompanied children and trafficking victims, which the Trump-era limits did not.
Federal officials have tallied about 2 million illegal crossings per year along the southern border since 2021, an all-time high. Migrants, many fleeing poverty, violence, or political unrest in their home countries, typically surrender to US border agents as soon as they cross over, kicking off the asylum process.
Under US law, immigrants are eligible for asylum if they can prove they were being persecuted on the basis of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or their political opinions.
Healey, a super-surrogate for Biden’s reelection campaign, had reserved her criticism for Congress over its failure to pass a bipartisan immigration bill. Her response exemplifies the political bind the Democratic governor is in: the leader of a deep-blue state with a unique right-to-shelter law who also serves a role as one of Biden’s most high-profile surrogates.
Political observers say Healey’s embrace of Biden’s action reflects her calculation to support the president as he tries to navigate dangerous political waters on a dominant issue in his reelection bid. It also reflects Healey’s own political calculus on an issue that has amounted to a political hot potato, even in a liberal-leaning state.
“The difficulty she [Healey] faces is reconciling our ideals with the current circumstances. That is very, very difficult,” said longtime Democratic consultant Jay Cincotti. “That kind of challenge is nothing new for any elected leader. The job of an elected official is to strike this balance.”
The contrast between Healey and other leading Massachusetts Democrats on Tuesday was stark.
“With all due respect, Mr. President, you should not be unearthing policies of the last administration,” declared Pressley, a Democrat from Boston and a leading progressive voice in Washington, at a news conference with immigrants’ rights advocates, organized to condemn Biden’s executive action. She said Biden’s choice “would gut the asylum process, deny immigrants their due process, and put vulnerable families back in harm’s way.”
In a separate statement, Markey urged Biden to “change course.”
Jeff Thielman, who works to resettle thousands of immigrants as chief executive of the International Institute of New England, criticized the new policy on multiple fronts. He said it not only fails to send money and assistance to states like Massachusetts that shelter migrants and provide legal aid and other assistance, it also hurts recent immigrants who hope to be reunited with family members they left and are likewise trying to escape persecution, danger, and poverty.
“That is heart-wrenching, and that is worrisome,” Thielman said. “The policy sends the wrong message to the world.”
Biden’s announcement was striking to new arrivals in the Boston area, including Oseas Macu, a 22-year-old from Guatemala who crossed the border into Texas in February. He said the process was difficult enough, “even though it was supposedly open.”
Macu said Massachusetts locals hardly seem to understand the dangers that drive migrants away from home.
”Some people, they now won’t be able to go back to their home,” Macu said in Spanish through an interpreter at Boston’s immigration court. “A lot of people might lose their life.”
The ACLU of Massachusetts’ executive director, Carol Rose, called the move “a cruel betrayal,” and Alianza Americas, a network of organizations led by immigrants — including many in Massachusetts — compared the policy to the Trump-era policies, which they described as “racist and inhumane.”
With political, economic, and environmental instability rocking Venezuela, Haiti, Central America, and Ukraine, Massachusetts — and the country as a whole — has seen a growing number of arrivals. In November 2022, a judge struck down Title 42, which was a public health policy that allowed asylum seekers to be expelled without a hearing. As a result, immigration court backlogs spiked.
In Massachusetts, the backlog has swelled to more than 160,000 — the seventh-largest in the nation. The state’s emergency shelter system, which guarantees food and shelter for homeless and migrant families or pregnant people, hit a self-imposed cap of 7,500 families months ago. Nearly 800 families are on a wait list, sleeping in temporary overflow shelter sites, and the trend shows no sign of slowing.
While a recent University of Massachusetts Amherst/WCVB poll shows voters don’t hold Healey directly responsible for the migrant crisis, the state is still on the hook to pay for it, which carries inherent political risk for the chief executive. Healey’s office projects it will cost $915 million to run the emergency shelter system, which houses migrant and homeless families for the fiscal year that begins July 1.
Like Healey, Biden is under political pressure, including from inside his own party, to address the influx of migrants into the country, a top concern of voters ahead of the presidential election.
The immigration surge during his term surpassed record levels and stands out as one of his largest political liabilities.
It remains a top concern of voters in Massachusetts, too. The state’s migrant and shelter crisis has engulfed Healey’s first term and strained resources across the state.
When asked how she squares her support for Biden’s proposal, Healey said “You’ve got to look at the order in its entirety,” and pointed out some of its other provisions, such as installing 100 more inspection machines to screen for fentanyl at the border.
She did underscore, as many critics have, that it doesn’t include a funding mechanism to help states sheltering large migrant populations.
“I continue to call on Congress to act to give us funding because states are having to bear the burden,” she said.
Globe correspondents Daniel Kool and Charlotte Ehrlich contributed to this report.
Samantha J. Gross can be reached at samantha.gross@globe.com. Follow her @samanthajgross.
BROCKTON, Mass. (WJAR) — Four people were shot on Friday night after hundreds had gathered to watch a World Cup match in Massachusetts.
Police said the shooting happened just before midnight on Main Street in Brockton.
Officers said the victims were taken to the hospital.
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Police have not said if there were any arrests.
BOSTON, (WPRI) — A somerset man has been cited for allegedly causing a deadly wrong-way crash in Boston late Saturday night.
Just before midnight, troopers from the H9 Barracks were called for a report of a multi-vehicle crash on I-93 North before Exit 15A.
A preliminary investigation showed that the driver of a 2004 Cadillac Escalade, identified as 81-year-old Antone Carvalho, of Somerset, entered Route 93 North at Exit 15B and drove southbound in the northbound lanes.
Two vehicles, a Honda Odyssey and an Audi A4, attempted to avoid the Carvalho and crashed into each other.
Four people in the Honda Odyssey, were taken to a Boston-area hospital for evaluation.
Shortly after the initial crash, police say Carvalho collided head-on with a Chevrolet Cruze.
Carvalho and the other driver were taken to Boston-area hospitals for their injuries
The driver of the Chevrolet Cruze, identified as a man in his 20’s from Haverhill, died from his injuries.
Carvalho will be issued a summons to appear in court at a later date.
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Norman Rockwell painted Stockbridge so often that the real Main Street now looks like one of his canvases come to life. That is the trick these Massachusetts towns pull off. A whaling-era cobblestone lane on Nantucket and a Revolutionary common in Concord do the same thing in different accents. Each one packs its best landmarks into a few blocks you can cover on foot. The eight New England streets here all sit under 50,000 residents and earn their reputation the honest way.
Fewer than 2,000 people live in Stockbridge, yet its Main Street may be the most recognizable in the state. Credit Norman Rockwell, who lived here and painted the view down the street so many times it lodged in the national memory. The white clapboard buildings, the old inns, and the big shade trees are all still right where he left them, and people still use them.
The Red Lion Inn has welcomed guests on this corner since 1773, and its long front porch is the street’s anchor in every sense. A short walk away, the Norman Rockwell Museum holds the largest collection of his work and even his relocated studio. Naumkeag adds a Gilded Age cottage with terraced gardens climbing the hillside. Come December, the town recreates Rockwell’s famous “Main Street at Christmas” scene with vintage cars parked along the curb, which is about as close as a real place gets to stepping into a painting.
Edith Wharton built her dream house just outside Lenox, and the writer’s eye for proportion seems to have rubbed off on the whole town. The center is small enough to park once and walk, with bookshops, cafes, and galleries shoulder to shoulder under the trees. Under 10,000 people live here, and the place wears its Berkshire elegance lightly.
The Mount, Wharton’s 1902 estate, runs as a house museum and public garden and hosts readings and outdoor events all summer. Ventfort Hall, a Jacobean-style mansion built for a sister of J.P. Morgan, fills in more of the Gilded Age story. Just up the road, Tanglewood draws crowds every July and August as the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, so a quiet shopping street can be ten minutes from a world-famous concert lawn. Few towns this size balance that kind of culture against that little traffic.
On April 19, 1775, the shot heard round the world was fired a short walk from where Concord shoppers now buy their morning coffee. That is the strange gift of this town. Its pretty village center sits below 20,000 residents, and its old houses, churches, and civic buildings look calm until you remember what happened among them.
Minute Man National Historical Park preserves the battle road and the fields where colonial militia turned back British regulars. Old North Bridge marks the spot itself, with Daniel Chester French’s Minute Man statue standing guard. Concord also raised more than its share of writers, and Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House, where she wrote “Little Women,” still opens for tours. Two miles south, Walden Pond holds the woods Thoreau made famous, an easy swim or walk that closes the loop between the town’s history and its quieter ideas.
The streets in Marblehead’s Old Town were laid out for foot traffic and fishing nets, not cars, so they bend and narrow and dead-end at the water. The town tops 20,000 residents now, but the historic core feels far older and more intimate. Washington Street and the lanes around it run past brick sidewalks and preserved houses, with the harbor flashing into view between rooftops.
The Jeremiah Lee Mansion, a grand Georgian house built in 1768 for the wealthiest merchant in colonial Massachusetts, still keeps its original hand-painted English wallpaper. Old Burial Hill rises above town with weathered colonial gravestones and one of the best harbor views around. Abbot Hall, the brick town hall with the clock tower, houses the original “Spirit of ’76” painting. Walk the waterfront and the reason for the whole town becomes obvious. Marblehead grew up facing the sea, and it never turned away.
Federal-era sea captains built their fortunes at the mouth of the Merrimack, and their three-story brick blocks still line the streets of downtown Newburyport. The Main Street feeling here spreads across several streets rather than one. Under 20,000 residents keep the center humming, with shops and restaurants filling old facades right down to the riverbank.
Market Square and State Street form the heart of it, a tight grid of brick that survived a great fire and a wave of 1970s urban renewal to come out the other side intact. The Custom House Maritime Museum, set in a granite 1835 building, tells the port’s seafaring story. Waterfront Park gives you a bench and a view of the boats. A few miles out on Plum Island, the Parker River refuge at Joppa Flats turns the same trip into prime birdwatching, so a downtown afternoon can end with herons instead of storefronts.
A plain red fishing shack on a granite pier may be the most painted building in America, and it sits right in Rockport’s harbor. Locals call it Motif No. 1, after an art teacher who got tired of seeing his students paint it. The town runs under 10,000 residents and folds its best parts into a few tight blocks by the water.
Main Street leads to Bearskin Neck, a skinny peninsula crammed with galleries, candy shops, and lobster shacks that ends with the open Atlantic. Front Beach puts sand and water within a short stroll of the shops. The Shalin Liu Performance Center, opened in 2010, built a concert hall with a wall of glass behind the stage, so the ocean becomes the backdrop for a string quartet. You can wander from a storefront to a harbor view to a gallery without ever breaking stride.
Great Barrington wired the first downtown in the world lit entirely by alternating current, back in 1886, and the place has kept that forward lean ever since. Under 10,000 residents fill a center that feels genuinely busy, with restaurants, bookstores, and galleries spread along Main Street and Railroad Street. It looks like an old Berkshire town and behaves like a young one.
The Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, a restored 1905 theater, books films, concerts, and live broadcasts year-round. The Housatonic River Walk threads a half-mile greenway along the water right behind Main Street, the work of volunteers who spent decades clearing a once-polluted bank. Just outside town, Monument Mountain offers a short climb to a quartzite ridge and a long view over the Housatonic River valley, the same trail Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne hiked together in 1850.
Whaling money built Nantucket’s Main Street, and the cobblestones laid to keep wagon wheels out of the mud are still there to rattle your suitcase. The island stays well under 50,000 year-round residents even at the height of summer. Brick sidewalks, weathered shingles, and window boxes give the downtown the texture of an old port rather than a new outdoor mall.
The Whaling Museum, set in an 1847 candle factory, explains how a small island once lit the lamps of the world, right down to a full sperm whale skeleton. Brant Point Lighthouse marks the harbor entrance and ranks among the most photographed beacons in New England. Straight Wharf keeps the working waterfront within steps of the shops, and the Oldest House, built in 1686, anchors the streetscape in the island’s first century. Every detail down to the gray shingles seems to point back to the same seafaring story.
What ties these eight together is not a shared look but a shared honesty. Stockbridge and Lenox lean on Berkshire culture, Concord carries the weight of 1775, and Great Barrington keeps reinventing itself. Marblehead, Newburyport, Rockport, and Nantucket all grew up facing salt water and never lost the habit. The best Main Streets here are not stage sets. They are working downtowns that happen to be worth a long, slow look.
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