Days after Gov. Maura Healey publicly signaled openness to changing the state’s decades-old right to shelter law, Republican state lawmakers Tuesday offered a round of reforms aimed at tightening the state’s response to an influx of migrants, setting up a potential political struggle over how to proceed.

The GOP proposals include restricting shelter eligibility to those who can show proof of residency in the state for one year and limiting their shelter stays to six months. State Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr says the changes would combat a prevailing notion that Massachusetts is a destination for those who come from other countries seeking shelter.

“Massachusetts faces a complex and ongoing challenge in addressing the migrant crisis, but we cannot allow this challenge to compromise the safety, well-being, and financial stability of our communities and our commonwealth,” said Tarr, who pointed to a November special state commission report that showed a projected price tag of $1 billion to maintain Massachusetts’ emergency housing assistance system.

“These reforms are not just necessary — they are urgent,” Tarr added.

The minority leader debuted the proposals alongside about a dozen other Republicans on Beacon Hill. They said the reforms will be presented as a large multipronged bill in the new legislative session.

The discussion comes amid a national conversation on immigration and a shift toward nativism and conservative politics. Massachusetts had a spotlight shown on its liberal immigration stances nearly three years ago when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis flew migrants to Martha’s Vineyard saying that their care would cost money and that all states — even those not physically aligned along the national border — should share in the burden.

The issue recently came into even sharper focus for Massachusetts when Gov. Healey twice imposed restrictions on how migrants and families access shelter as the state’s shelter system faced strain amid an influx of migrants and an ongoing housing crisis, once in fall 2023 and again in summer 2024 .

In between Healey’s announcements, a GBH News/Commonwealth Beacon online poll of 1,000 Massachusetts residents showed that 67 percent believed the state’s migrant situation amounted to “a major problem or crisis.”

By fall 2024, a Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll of Massachusetts likely voters showed complex attitudes on the issue, including prevailing beliefs that migrants are taking up housing that should go to Americans first, and that the state should not withhold all help from new migrants.

Tarr told GBH News that it is important Massachusetts remain open and welcoming to people who follow rules, “but our [state’s] ability to continue to do that is being impaired by unsustainable spending on many folks who may not be playing by the rules.”

Healey has said the right to shelter law’s current function does not align with its original intention to provide care for poor women and children. Asked about the GOP proposals Tuesday afternoon, Healey reiterated that she is receptive to a conversation on reform.

“I am evaluating the program and I expect to make proposals in terms of changes very soon,” she told reporters.

“What we’ve seen … has been this huge growth in those seeking emergency shelter and some of that is because we’ve got a national housing crisis and people are coming to Massachusetts looking for housing, and some of it has to do with the border and an influx of migrants to America,” Healey said. “What I think is important is that we do and act in ways that support folks in Massachusetts, that means families [and] women and children who were born in Massachusetts, grew up in Massachusetts, are living in Massachusetts and experiencing homelessness.”

Other proposed changes from the GOP include blocking those with a history of violence from re-entering the state’s shelter system and authorizing law enforcement and court officials to honor ICE detainers for violent offenders in order to enhance safety. Lawmakers also called for monthly briefings with the Healey administration to track the state of spending and shelter capacity and an audit to determine the total cost of Massachusetts’ response to the influx of migrants.