Mass. residents say ‘immigration/migrants’ top issue facing state

LESS THAN 20 MONTHS ago, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sent a planeload of Venezuelan migrants to Martha’s Vineyard to give Massachusetts a taste of what it’s like to have unexpected visitors show up on the doorstep.

The DeSantis stunt grabbed a lot of attention, but the plane carried only 48 migrants and it was fairly easy for the state to support them. In the end, immigration for most Massachusetts residents remained a distant, low priority issue.

But starting in the second half of last year, more and more migrants started to arrive in Massachusetts. And as they arrived and began to overwhelm the state’s emergency shelter system, Massachusetts residents have begun to pay attention.

In its polls, the MassINC Polling Group often asks an open-ended question: What’s the most important issue facing Massachusetts. For a long time, the answer would rotate between the economy/jobs, the cost of living, or housing. Immigration never broke into the top 10 until last August, when it moved into fourth place with 10 percent of those polled saying it was the most important issue facing the state, trailing behind the big three — economy/jobs at 12 percent, the cost of living at 21 percent, and housing at 23 percent.

Now the immigration/migrant issue has moved into the top spot. In a new CommonWealth Beacon/GBH News poll (topline, crosstabs), 21 percent of Massachusetts residents say “immigration/migrants” is the most pressing issue facing state government, topping housing (15 percent), inflation/cost of living (12 percent), and taxes, government spending, and welfare (12 percent).

Sixty-seven percent of those polled said the migrant situation was either a crisis (28 percent) or a major problem (39 percent).  While previous polls indicated the migrant situation in Massachusetts was a concern primarily for Republicans, the latest poll indicates Democrats are now concerned as well, with 21 percent of those surveyed calling it a crisis and 40 percent a major problem.

The survey of 1,002 Bay State residents by the MassINC Polling Group was conducted online between March 21 and March 29. It has a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points. 

The CommonWealth Beacon/GBH News poll also helps explain why policymakers in Massachusetts have been slow to address the issue. Nearly four out of five residents support the state’s emergency shelter law, which requires the state to provide housing to homeless families and pregnant women.

But when asked whether they support or oppose housing migrants in the shelter system, 47 percent said they were opposed and 46 percent said they were supportive. That’s a shift from a poll in October, when support for housing migrants in the shelter system was 55 percent and opposition was 40 percent.

This strong support for the law but division over whether it should apply to migrants has largely frozen Beacon Hill as the cost of the shelter system has tripled this fiscal year from just over $300 million to more than $900 million. The number of migrants flowing into the state shows no sign of tapering off and Washington remains as deadlocked as ever in trying to address the immigration issue.

State officials have taken some steps to address the cost of the emergency shelter law. Gov. Maura Healey unilaterally altered the law in August, placing a cap on the number of families that can be accommodated in the shelter system and creating a waiting list and overflow sites for those that can’t. And the Legislature seems inclined to impose a loose cap on how long someone can remain in the shelter system. But until last week, when House Speaker Ron Mariano threw out that “there is a point in time that you can’t fund this,” no one had suggested backing away from the law itself.

Sen. Peter Durant of Spencer, a Republican who rode the emergency shelter issue to a special election victory in November, said the poll results don’t surprise him. “In general, by a wide margin, we’re compassionate welcoming people,” he said of Massachusetts residents. “But people are more divided about what is fair and who should the law assist.”

Many Republicans on Beacon Hill have suggested the emergency shelter system should only be open to Massachusetts residents, not migrants from abroad. But Steve Koczela, the president of the MassINC Polling Group, said the growing opposition to migrants in the shelter system reflected in the recent poll may not indicate what residents want policymakers to do.

“It’s one of those situations where voters may not have the best answer,” he said. “They may not have any answer.”