EXCLUSIVE: The chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee is subpoenaing the Massachusetts Port Authority for documents requested last year related to the sheltering of migrants in Boston Logan International Airport, calling the practice “reckless and offensive.”
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who is chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, intends to subpoena Massport for documents Republicans on the committee requested last year about the use of facilities to allow migrants to shelter at the airport.
“Donald Trump put a stop to Biden’s open border policy, but a full investigation of this scandal is vital to both prevent its future reemergence and hold accountable those complicit in Biden’s lawless immigration orders,” Cruz told Fox News Digital.
SENATE COMMERCE REPUBLICANS EXPAND PROBE INTO AIRPORTS IN ‘SANCTUARY’ JURISDICTIONS SHELTERING MIGRANTS
Senator Ted Cruz is chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. (Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
In a letter in March last year, lawmakers pointed to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grants Logan had received, and said that one of the obligations of such funding was that facilities be available for public use. They argued that the use of facilities to house migrants violated that condition.
Migrants were camped out at the airport on a daily basis on the floors of Terminal E at the airport at the height of the migrant crisis, which quickly saw migrants travel to “sanctuary” cities that limit cooperation with ICE.
“Frankly, what you’ve seen at Logan has been the situation, and this is why I said months ago that we are reaching capacity here,” Gov. Maura Healey said in January 2024.
ILLEGAL MIGRANTS ARE SLEEPING IN TERMINALS OF BOSTON AIRPORT ON ‘DAILY’ BASIS AS CRISIS OVERWHELMS SHELTERS
In July, migrants were barred from using the airport as a shelter, and instead were offered taxpayer-funded accommodation elsewhere.
“As of July 9, 2024, there was a policy change announced by the state that migrant families could no longer stay overnight at Logan, and no families have stayed at Logan since then,” a spokesperson for Massport told Fox News Digital on Monday.
Lawmakers on the Commerce Committee wanted to know how many migrants were housed, the related costs, the impact on capacity, screening information and how the port authority was reimbursed, if at all. But the committee says it did not receive a response.
A committee aide told Fox News Digital that the committee is subpoenaing documents and communications related to the house of illegal immigrants at Logan, including communications with government agencies, nonprofits and healthcare providers. It will also seek documents about security incidents involving migrants, and documents identifying those involved in housing them.
Illegal migrants line floors of terminal in Boston Logan Airport as Massachusetts’ shelters are overrun. (WBZ)
“As the investigation has already shown, Massport clearly violated FAA grant requirements when it used Logan International Airport as ‘free’ housing for illegal aliens,” Cruz told Fox.
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“Massport has repeatedly refused the Committee’s request for information, including on potential security incidents. As Chairman of the Committee with jurisdiction over civil aviation and aviation security, I plan to issue a subpoena to compel Massport to turn over the information and communications we’ve been seeking for almost a year,” he said.
“Using a federally-funded public airport to house illegal aliens was reckless and offensive to airline passengers and American taxpayers alike,” he said.
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The subpoena comes as the Trump administration has taken an aggressive approach to cracking down on illegal immigration. It has increased interior enforcement, including in sanctuary cities like Boston, while limiting the ability to release migrants into the interior. It has also deployed the military to the border and ended the Biden-era use of humanitarian parole to release migrants.
Interior arrests have gone up, while border crossings have dropped sharply, which the administration is putting down to the impact of the new policies.