Democrats need to listen to voters on immigration – Boston Herald

You don’t need a pollster to tell you which way the polls are blowing.

And they are not blowing in the wind.

They are telling Gov. Maura Healey and the political establishment in Massachusetts that the citizens are deeply concerned about the illegal immigration invasion of the state.

It is the “single biggest issue” facing Massachusetts, according to the poll of 1,002 Massachusetts residents conducted by MassINC with GBH News and Commonwealth Beacon.

Which is something that the people already knew. The poll simply confirmed it.

Twenty-one percent of those polled said immigration was on top of their list of concerns, followed by 15% for housing and 12%  for the cost of living.

It is what people are talking about—when they are not talking about the continuing high cost of just about everything, like food, gas, rent and housing– not to mention street crime.

These are things most people deal with every day, and they marvel at how their taxes go toward providing thousands of illegal immigrants benefits they do not qualify for.

The ongoing influx of illegal immigrants, lured to Massachusetts because of its generous welfare benefits, is threatening to wreak havoc with the state budget, let alone with the social fabric of some cities and town which are housing the immigrants.

State services are being cut and money being transferred to accounts to cope with the needs of the needy immigrants, many of whom are women and children.

It is costing the state a billion dollars a year—and rising—to care for the immigrants in scores of hotels, motels and shelters across the state.

It is a crisis that is shaping up to be worse than the COVID pandemic that practically shut the state down.

The difference is that President Joe Biden, who was not responsible for the pandemic, poured billions into the state to deal with it.

Now Biden, who is responsible for immigrant crisis by opening the border, has ignored the begging by Healey and other fellow Democrats for financial assistance.

COVID eventually went away. The immigrant crisis has not, and is only growing and will continue to grow as long as Biden keeps the border open.

It is also a matter of national security. Only last week it was reported that some 24,000 Chinese nationals, single young men of military age, have crossed into the US over the southern border in the past fiscal year.

How did they get to leave our adversary, the police state of China, and get here?  Who are they? Where are they? What are they doing here?

Do we get to support them too?

The country is fiddling while Rome burns.

Politicians pay more attention to climate change and saving the planet, which they can do little about, than to the climate at the Pine Street Inn in Boston, which they can do something about.

Last week Boston Mayor Wu made a big deal out of appointing Brian Swett to head the city’s Environment, Energy and Open Space Cabinet at $195,000 while the Pine Street Inn is overflowing with the homeless, many of whom are immigrants.

And Healey has appointed a slew of world saving climate change zealots to high paying jobs while her administration searches for places to house and feed the influx of immigrants, let alone clean up the trash and rubbish along the shoulders of Routes 495, 128, 93 and elsewhere.

Last week Healey blasted Trump, who is in favor of “drill, baby, drill,” for his opposition to offshore wind. She told Massachusetts Politico, “We can’t let Donald Trump get away with continuing to lie.”

“I know how important the climate is to the people of Massachusetts,” she said.

Of the residents interviewed in the poll, only 2% said the climate was the single biggest issue.

Read the room, ladies, read the room.

Peter Lucas is a veteran political reporter. Email him at: [email protected]