Migrants cleared out of Boston's Logan Airport while nonprofits scramble to help them
BOSTON - Migrant families are now banned from sleeping at Logan Airport and Massachusetts nonprofits are working to help them find shelter elsewhere.
Terminal E now empty
Logan Airport's Terminal E is now empty. Floors once crowded with dozens of migrant families are now bare as of Tuesday night under orders from the Healey Administration.
"The family last night, the little boy was wet and I immediately came here and got him some clothes," said Gladys Vega at La Colaborativa in Chelsea. She has been preparing, knowing the closure of the impromptu sleeping space at the airport was coming to an end, and immigrant families with no place else to go would need help. "If by any case someone comes at night we will be your on-call organization and that's what happened." said Vega.
That was her message to the Healey Administration, and Vega was called into action to go to Logan Airport and help some of the arriving families with a sleeping space and essentials. She now has a message that's difficult.
"Massachusetts is not the right place to come anymore"
"If you don't have a plan, if you don't have a family member that awaits you, if you don't have a job that is waiting for you, Massachusetts is not the right place to come anymore." Asked if that was tough for her to say Vega replied, "Of course it is because imagine, I've been an organization welcoming everyone."
Vega called it a humanitarian crisis with the state's shelters at capacity, and the governor saying Logan Airport can no longer be an option where dozens of families were camping out days at a time, including a 31-year-old woman from Haiti who spoke through an interpreter at Immigrant Family Services of Mattapan and didn't want to be identified.
"That was not what I expected. I couldn't sleep and just [spent the night] reflecting on the journey," said the woman through an interpreter. It was a several months journey to reach Massachusetts, and she has finally found a space at the former correctional facility in Norfolk which she says has given her some stability. "I came to seek a better life."
Which Dr. Geralde Gabeau at the Mattapan organization said is all anyone wants. She said Logan was never an ideal welcoming place for migrant families, but that nonprofits like hers will have to step up even more.
"Yes, it's challenging, yes it's difficult. But does that mean we should close our doors, I don't think so. So that reason is why my call is to everyone who can come and help to do so," said Dr. Gabeau.