There are nearly 5,600 families or more than 20,000 individuals -- many of whom are migrants -- currently living in state shelters, including infants, young children and pregnant women. That is up from around 3,100 families a year ago, about an 80% increase, Healey said.
She called on the federal government for financial help, and more urgently, expedited work authorizations to allow the new arrivals to more quickly find jobs and start earning a living, she wrote in a letter to U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas. Geralde Gabeau, executive director of the Immigrant Family Services Institute, has worked with immigrants arriving from Haiti and said they are ready to get to work.
"Perhaps it is time for the governor to take a trip to the southern border to see firsthand the open southern border crisis," he said in a statement.