People in the small Massachusetts town of Norfolk recently found out that the prison in their town, which closed in 2015, is going to be used to house hundreds of illegal immigrants.
Many residents are unhappy about this, claiming that it will strain the schools and other resources, but the state owns the property and doesn’t seem to care what the people of Norfolk think about the idea.
FOX News reports:
Democratic town furious over migrant shelter opening in neighborhoodResidents in a New England town are fuming that they have not been consulted on plans to convert a former state prison into a tax-payer-funded migrant shelter for hundreds of people.The state is refurbishing Norfolk, Massachusetts’ Bay State Correctional Center, a former minimum-security dorm-like facility, to accommodate migrants and homeless individuals who are currently holed up at Boston’s Logan International Airport and are on the waitlist for an emergency shelter program. The facility is located on the grounds of Massachusetts Correctional Institution (MCI), a medium-security prison.Norfolk has a population of about 11,500 and voted heavily in favor of President Joe Biden in 2020…Residents said they want answers about the impact on schools, police and emergency services, pointing out that municipal budgets are already stretched thin.”Let’s face it, we don’t want it here. We don’t,” resident John Semas said, according to GBH.”And, it doesn’t make us bad people, it doesn’t make me not compassionate, it doesn’t make me a bad father.” Semas was among a small group of people donning shirts and placards that read “Save Norfolk: No Shelter,” the publication reports.
Most of the people in Norfolk may have voted for Biden in 2020, but now they sound an awful lot like Trump supporters.
Here’s more from FOX 25 in Boston:
“We’ve got a lot of work to do, we’ve got to work with our police chief, fire chief, all of our school superintendents, make sure we have a plan,” said Jim Lehan, Norfolk Select board member. “But there’s no point in putting a plan together until we know what it is we’re planning for.”Gov. Maura Healey’s office says the former state prison will become an emergency shelter that will be able to house 140 families – or up to 450 people.Many of them are migrants who have been sleeping at Logan Airport.“You do the math, you figure 150 families, you’ve got two per family, plus kids, so that could be anywhere from 100 to 150 kids,” said Lehan. “I don’t know the age, we don’t know any of this, we don’t know whether it’s elementary or high school.”Parents are also concerned since they say this regional school district is already at capacity.“There’s so many kids now and then this on top of it, it’s going to be tough – and like where are they putting them? There’s no place for them to go,” said Eric Franz, a Norfolk parent.The former prison is in a rural area with no sidewalks for the nearly two mile walk to town.“And when they get here, there are no stores other than the Walgreens,” said Lehan.The closest grocery store is about four to five miles away in surrounding towns like Foxboro, Millis, Walpole and Medfield.
I’m looking forward to seeing how Norfolk votes in November.
Featured image via YouTube.
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