One man says his wife is sick, another says his daughter has a persistent cold. Other migrants, fleeing unrest back home or simply seeking better economic opportunities, also want to know about medical care and potential jobs.
By the dozens, they spread their blankets to sleep on the hard, gray floor of Logan International Airport, some curling up next to their children. With their immediate future unclear, for now, this is their America.
Terminal E at Logan has become another of the improbable locations of the nation’s migrant crisis, where by a huge billboard advertising Revere Beach, scores of people are sleeping in view of passing travelers, in part because the state’s shelter system is maxed out. There were about 80 people in this one location Thursday night, at least 20 of them small children. One batted a balloon, another chased after a toy car, another plucked Cheerios out of a small tin.
Advertisement
“Everyone here needs a chance, an opportunity,” said a man who identified himself as Adilson. “Housing and a job.”
Recently, migrants — many from Haiti, drawn by word of mouth and the pull of the long-established Haitian community in Massachusetts — have been staying at the airport overnight. They stay here because they have nowhere else to go.
When morning comes, they are transported to welcome centers. State authorities said Thursday they do not have an “exact number” for how many people sleep at Logan overnight because “the number consistently changes.”
Jennifer Mehigan, a spokesperson for Massport, which runs Logan, said Thursday the agency continues “to see migrants at the airport on a daily basis.” Staff who speak Haitian Creole and Spanish are made available to assist the families, she said.
“They come to Logan a number of ways, some fly in, but the majority do not,” she said in an email. “They also arrive at Logan at all hours.”
Here is a public space with a roof overhead in a state where shelter is at a premium.
The state’s emergency shelter system has been overburdened for months amid a surge of migrants. Last fall, the system hit a state-imposed limit of 7,500 families. On Thursday, Massachusetts authorities said the system remains over that limit. So far the state has set up three overflow shelters sites and partnered with the United Way for additional safety-net shelter sites across the state.
Advertisement
More than 800 families have left the shelter system since September, and families are taken each day from Logan to welcoming centers — in Quincy and Allston — for support and resources. If a family can’t find room at a shelter, staff from the welcome centers “provide them with transportation to locations identified by the family as a safe alternative.” According to the state’s Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, “Families are informed that Logan Airport is not a shelter.”
Still, they come.
A Haitian man who only identified himself as Andy, had just tried to put his 3-year-old son to bed. His wife is here as well. He has been staying at Logan at night for more than a week.
“I came here for the best life,” he said through an interpreter.
Among those hunkering down at Terminal E for the night, Haitian Creole and Spanish are widely spoken, and many use translation apps on their phones to convey their thoughts in English. Multiple people have a sick spouse or child and ask where or how they can receive medical care. Several people say they’ve stayed at Logan for more than a week. Some parents looked exhausted as they laid down with their kids under the building’s interior lights.
Frandy Ladouceur, another Haitian national, has been staying at Logan with his family for more than a week. People, he said through an interpreter, “are always telling each other that things will get better.”
Advertisement
Another Haitian man who identified himself only as Gaby said his wife was sick and that he had been staying at Logan with her and his daughter for several days. He said brutal gang violence and political upheaval in Haiti in recent years was part of the reason why he came to the United States.
Some 300 gangs control most of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. According to the United Nations, 8,400 victims of gang violence were documented in the capital last year.
“I came here ... to look for work and a better life for my family because there is no life in Haiti anymore,” Gaby said through an interpreter.
The state’s emergency assistance director, retired Air Force general Scott Rice, said Thursday that Massachusetts “is using every resource at our disposal to make sure families have a safe, warm place to stay.”
“We are working diligently to open more safety-net sites for families arriving in Massachusetts, including those at Logan,” Rice said. “Our system is at capacity, and we have repeatedly called for assistance, particularly from the federal government. We stand ready to work with every municipal leader, community organization, church or anyone who can help us open more safety-net sites for families.”
Indeed, earlier in the week, Governor Maura Healey was among nine governors to send a letter to federal leaders urging them to fix the nation’s immigration system, calling on heads of both parties “to work together to solve what has become a humanitarian crisis.”
“States and cities cannot indefinitely respond to the subsequent strain on state and local resources without congressional action,” the governors wrote. “Communities along the southern border — as well as interior states and cities across the country — lack the vast coordinated infrastructure needed to respond to the humanitarian and public safety concerns of those seeking lawful entry into the United States.”
Advertisement
Previously, Healey twice wrote to the Biden administration, imploring officials to quickly grant work permits to the thousands of migrants who have overwhelmed the state’s shelter system and to send money to help the state provide necessary resources such as housing and transportation.
For decades, homeless families have been guaranteed a roof over their heads under a 1980s-era law in Massachusetts, the only state in the country with a so-called right-to-shelter requirement.
But a current statute makes the mandate “subject to appropriation,” meaning the state is required to follow it only as long as it has enough money. And with ballooning costs, Massachusetts officials have asserted that they can no longer guarantee shelter past 7,500 families.
At Logan on Thursday night, the hustle and bustle of the airport remained unchanged. Only stanchions separated those sleeping from those who were coming and going to the airport. A few steps from the sleeping masses, young men, fresh from a ski trip, from the looks of their luggage, walked through the arrivals gate. A man waited for a loved one with flowers. Outside, cabs and other cars queued up and people loaded their suitcases into trunks. Upstairs, near the departures gate, people checked in for their flights to London or Munich, Dubai or Istanbul.
Most of the travelers whisked quickly past the people sleeping nearby in this corner of Terminal E.
Andy, one of the Haitians who has slept here recently, at one point motioned over a reporter. The man who had interpreted for him earlier was asleep, and Andy had typed out a message on a translation app on his phone. A question he wanted to ask.
Advertisement
“Can you find me a job?” it read.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
Danny McDonald can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @Danny__McDonald.