Updated 9:46pm
Migrants who have been sent on buses from the Texas border to New York and Washington, D.C., have already begun showing up at Boston-area hospitals seeking medical and housing help.
GBH News confirmed with several hospitals that homeless migrants sent north by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have ended up in local emergency rooms looking for assistance.
Abbott started busing migrants who crossed the border for a variety of reasons — including seeking asylum — to Washington in April. In August, he expanded that to New York City and Chicago, and has sent almost 3,000 migrants on 55 buses so far, saying that the state will “continue busing migrants to sanctuary cities” until the “federal government does its job and secures the border.”
Two of those families sent north recently arrived in Boston and sought help at the Tufts Medical Center emergency room, where staff performed medical evaluations, said Dr. Brien Barnewolt, Chief of Emergency Medicine at Tufts Medical Center.
“There were no medical issues. There were purely social issues — an undocumented migrant family that essentially landed in Boston and had no resources,” Barnewolt said. “They had nowhere to go. They didn't know who to call. They really had nothing.” Social workers in the emergency room worked with the families, who both had young children, and were able to refer them to the state Department of Transitional Assistance.
The state office of Transitional Assistance didn’t respond to requests for comment about their plan to assist homeless migrant families that end up in Massachusetts.
Barnewolt said his hospital is prepared to help migrants with medical needs, but when it comes to social services, backup is needed. Families sitting in emergency rooms might be taking up spaces and resources for ill patients. They won’t get kicked out of Tufts Medical Center’s emergency room for showing up, Barnewolt said, but it takes a while to figure out next steps.
“What we’d like the state government and federal government to do is to identify better resources for these families to land in,” he said.
Several staff members, who did not want to be named, from multiple departments at Children's Hospital in Boston told GBH News that they've seen or heard of increases of migrants from Texas in the emergency room over the past few weeks. Children's Hospital didn't return multiple requests for comment.
Mass General Brigham has also seen an increase of homeless migrant families and is working to figure out how many have arrived in the past weeks, but says it’s more than 10 at MGH and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
“Across the Commonwealth, hospitals are reporting an increase of migrants in need of shelter and medical care,” the hospital media team wrote in a statement. “We are committed to supporting these families in crisis and are thankful for the care provided by our healthcare professionals each day.”
The statement also said the hospital is working with government partners to connect families with resources “they so desperately need” short-term and long-term.
Boston Medical Center has seen the number of families experiencing homelessness presenting to their ER increase, but didn’t comment specifically on migrant families.
“As the region’s largest safety-net hospital, BMC has always cared for patients and families in need, but the recent uptick has strained the agencies we work with to help families, after they are medically cleared,” a spokesperson said. He said BMC is committed to working with the city and state to address housing needs for homeless families.
The state Executive Office of Health and Human Services didn’t answer questions about whether it has a plan in place to assist migrant families coming into the region, especially as a housing crunch continues. A spokesperson from the office said they have heard no reports of buses coming to Massachusetts.
Boston has been preparing for weeks for the possibility of an overflow of migrants coming north from the Texas to New York City buses.
About $1.1 million of federal COVID money is proposed for housing migrants who arrived in the past 18 months, although not specifically for those coming from the Abbott buses, according to Monique Tú Nguyen, executive director of the Mayor’s Office for Immigrant Advancement.
“We have seen that asylum seekers have been coming to Boston over the last one and half years,” Nguyen said in an emailed statement. “We are in conversation with the State, regional cities, nonprofits, and hospitals to connect families with services and resources. To ensure that these families will get the care and support they need, every sector will need to work together with particular need for investment and action from the federal government.”
Abbott has shown no sign of stopping the busing. He’s sent 190 buses and 8,000 migrants to D.C. so far, according to Abbott’s press office.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday afternoon, a plane carrying nearly 50 people from Venezuela and Colombia unexpectedly landed at Martha’s Vineyard Airport.
The Vineyard Gazette quoted one of the passengers as saying they went through ten countries before reaching Texas where a refugee association put them on the plane, promising jobs and housing. Edgartown Fire Chief Alex Shaeffer said the town would house the migrants overnight. They were taken on a bus to St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Edgartown.
It's not known if more planes carrying migrants are coming to the island.
Produced with assistance from the Public Media Journalists Association Editor Corps funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the American people.
