Massachusetts Republican lawmakers are questioning the wisdom of housing migrants at the international boarding terminal at Boston Logan International Airport, which notoriously served as the point of departure for two of the four planes used in the deadliest attack on American soil in history.
“This is just another 9/11 just waiting to happen,” Massachusetts Sen. Peter Durant (R) told The Epoch Times. “It’s an absolute security risk. We are going down a very dangerous path.”
Mr. Durant was responding to Gov. Maura Healey’s move to address the immigration crisis plaguing Massachusetts by sending them to live at the airport—one of the busiest airports in the country.
In citing recent figures from U.S. Homeland Security, Mr. Durant pointed out the estimated $1.8 million “gotaways” that have entered the United States since 2021.
Last March, Former Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz told The House Committee on Homeland Security that the figure does not include the “unknown gotaways,” a term used by border agents to describe illegal immigrants that evaded check-in points.
He estimated that the figure of illegal immigrants who have crossed over the border in just the last three years under Biden’s open border policy is closer to $2 million.
Mr. Durant said that translates into a lot of illegal immigrants who could have “hateful intentions” against the United States.
Foreign terrorists on the U.S. watch list have already been discovered at encampments similar to the one set up at Logan.
According to a recent Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) report, the agency has identified 264 people on the FBI terrorist watch list known as the “Known Suspect Terrorist” or KST list, with 151 of them being in 2023 alone.
FBI Director Christopher Wray told the Homeland Security Committee in November that “to be on the watchlist as a KST means that they have met the standard to be of concern.”
Massachusetts Rep. David DeCoste (R) told The Epoch Times that it should just be common sense that the last place illegal immigrants should be housed is at an airport, especially Logan.
“We obviously haven’t learned our lesson,” said Mr. DeCoste, who was serving as an active duty combat Army soldier in the Gulf War when the 9/11 attacks were carried out. “We are still very much living in a fantasy world.”
The two planes that were flown into the World Trade Center departed from Boston Logan Airport on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. The terrorists, Islamic jihadists, who orchestrated the attack boarded the plans at Logan after arriving on connecting flights from Portland, Maine. Prior to the attack, two of them were on the FBI’s terrorist-alert list.
On the night of Jan. 25, the Epoch Times observed at least 100 illegal immigrants camping out in Terminal E at Logan. The group was a mix of single men and couples with children, including infants.
While most of the illegal immigrants were camped out on the bottom floor in a wing of the terminal, some were observed sleeping on a second floor while a few were seen wandering around.
Healey’s Administration did not respond to inquiries from The Epoch Times about the situation.
Fox News reported that Healey told them that state police were being paid overtime to monitor the illegal immigrants’ encampment at the airport.
The Epoch Times did not observe any police or anyone monitoring the encampment. During a two-hour stretch, the only person seen in the area besides the illegal immigrants was an airport employee emptying trash.
A person who spoke on the condition of anonymity with Troop F, which is the assigned State Police unit at Logan Airport, told The Epoch Times he wasn’t aware of any extra coverage being provided by the agency but referred The Epoch Times to The Massachusetts Port Authority known as Massport, which is in charge of airport security.
The agency did not respond to repeated inquiries from The Epoch Times.
In November, Massport Interim CEO Edward Freni said at a press conference that “it needed to be emphasized that Logan airport was not an appropriate place” to house migrants.
Mr. Freni said illegal immigrants were being flown directly to the airport and that about 20 to 25 new migrants were showing up a day at Logan. Mr. Freni said Massport and state police were “assisting in transporting them” from the airport to Welcome Centers.
Migrants who spoke with the Epoch Times using Google Translate said while they are bussed during the day to the welcome centers, they are bussed back to the airport at night. One man said he had been living at the airport for three weeks so far.
When asked by The Epoch Times why he came to America, he responded by typing in Spanish “for housing.” Another man, who said he was from Africa and spoke Portuguese, said he was not happy to be sleeping on the hard floor of the airport.
Gov. Healey, whose Administration has already spent hundreds of millions of dollars in tax dollars to provide housing for migrants and has asked for millions more, said she is only acting under the mandate of the state’s right to shelter law. She has argued that means anyone physically in Massachusetts who needs housing.
Mr. DeCoste says that is just not true—that the law’s intent was to provide short-term housing for American citizens in the event of a disaster. “What’s being used for now is as an excuse, and it is attracting migrants from all over the country to Massachusetts,” he said.
Mr. Durant said that while Gov. Healey has declared it a crisis, she only continues to ask Massachusetts taxpayers for more money and hasn’t done anything to stop the flow. He said she should be bussing them elsewhere like other states have done.
Just this past week, Gov. Healey proposed taking $700 million out of the state’s “rainy day” escrow funds to help cover the cost of sheltering the migrants. She admitted the cost would likely end up being a yearly cost of $1 billion.
MassGOP Chairwoman Amy Carnevale, another state Republican to blast the move to house migrants at Logan, also blasted Ms. Healey for not supporting a call by Republicans to reform the state’s right-to-shelter law to clarify it does not apply to migrants.
“Several months ago, Republicans in the legislature warned that such a scenario would unfold, emphasizing the need for reforms to the Right to Shelter Law,” Ms. Carnivale said in a statement.
Besides Logan Airport in Boston, migrants are also being sheltered at the O’Hare International Airport in Chicago, one of the busiest airports in the U.S.
