Massachusetts Democrat Gov. Maura Healey on Monday ordered an inspection of all state-run emergency shelters after an illegal migrant was arrested with an AR-15 rifle and hundreds of thousands of dollars in drugs found in his taxpayer-funded hotel room.
Leonardo Andujar Sanchez, a 28-year-old Dominican national, was hit with illegal possession of a firearm, heroin trafficking and other charges in late December after local law enforcement in Revere, Massachusetts, found an AR-15 rifle, ammunition and around five kilograms of fentanyl and cocaine inside the Quality Inn hotel room he was living in. That hotel is among the 128 hotels and motels across the state that have been used to house asylum seekers and other homeless families since the immigration crisis began.
Healey, who has defended her state’s sanctuary policies in the past, appeared to blame Washington, D.C., for the shocking arrest.
“It’s outrageous that this individual took advantage of our shelter system to engage in criminal activity,” the Democrat governor said Monday, according to NBC10 Boston. “Our administration has been in touch with both local law enforcement and federal immigration officials regarding this case.”
Items found in Andujar’s possession upon his arrest. Image courtesy of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“This further underscores our broken federal immigration system and the urgent need for Congress and the White House to act on a border security bill to prevent criminals from entering our communities,” Healey continued. “The people of Massachusetts should not continue to have to deal with the impacts of federal inaction.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Friday confirmed that Andujar is an illegal migrant, having entered the United States unlawfully as a gotaway sometime during 2024. When authorities executed a search warrant for the Quality Inn hotel room that Andujar was living in, they not only found an AR-15 and ammunition — which is unlawful for an illegal migrant to possess, but also cocaine and fentanyl with a street value worth around $750,000.
The arrest marked the latest high-profile criminal incident within Massachusetts’ shelter system. A Haitian man was arrested in March for allegedly raping a disabled minor at a Comfort Inn in Rockland that was being utilized for migrant housing.
The governor on Monday announced that she has ordered an inspection of all shelter units in the state, beginning with the hotel in Revere, according to NBC10 Boston. She has additionally ordered a review of Massachusetts’ intake processes to determine whether any other steps need to be taken to prevent criminal activity in these emergency shelters that house thousands of illegal migrants.
Around 355,000 illegal migrants and other inadmissible foreign nationals live in Massachusetts, and roughly 50,000 have arrived since 2021, according to estimates by the Center for Immigration Studies. A state commission report released in November predicted that the state would dole out over $1 billion on its emergency shelter system to house migrants and other families in the 2025 fiscal year.
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