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Fury in historic northeast city as officials use school buses for MIGRANTS, axing local kids' service
Parents in a Boston exurb have reacted angrily to revelations that schools are axing buses for local children — but keeping them running for the kids of migrants and asylum seekers.
Some 150 students at Stoughton Public Schools are scrambling to find ways to get to school from September 4, after the district cut services due to a lack of funding.
Controversially, the hundreds of migrant and asylum seeker families living in the town of Stoughton will still get school-buses, thanks to funding from the state.
The scrapping of buses for local kids comes amid fears that Massachusetts is going broke and will lose $1.8 billion over the next two years due to migrant costs.
Boston radio host Jeff Kuhner said the Democrat-run state was 'prioritizing illegals over citizens' and that the busing change amounted to 'treason.'
Parents in the Boston exurb of Stoughton are furious that 150 students are losing their school bus service when term starts next month
Stoughton schools chief Joseph Baeta cuts buses for American kids but keeps a special service for migrants running
Others complained that the town of 30,000 people was 'losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue' from its hotels being crammed with migrant families instead of tourists and business visitors.
'It's wrong on so many levels that taxpayers' children can't get the bus,' posted an X user.
The town's Superintendent of Schools Joseph Baeta told parents about the change in a letter earlier this month.
'Unfortunately, for the upcoming 2024-2025 school year, 150 secondary students who signed up to ride a bus were not able to be placed on a bus,' says the letter.
'We understand the feelings of disappointment and frustration this caused for the families who did not receive bus transportation.'
Baeta said the bus system was overloaded by 160 more students seeking transport compared to last year.
At the same time, budget cuts mean organizers have one less buss than last year, and drivers are hard to find, he added.
Though cutting services for some students, Baeta said two buses would serve migrant children living in the town's hotels and shelters.
Unlike for American grade 7-12 students, this was required for migrants under Massachusetts law — and was financed through separate funds, Baeta added.
'It is inaccurate to suggest that these children receiving busing is the reason yours did not,' says the letter.
'If we were not receiving the funding from the state for the students living in hotels/shelters, we would not be able to have these two additional buses.'
Still, others note that all services are ultimately funded from taxes, and that running buses for migrants while denying legal US residents is problematic.
The superintendent had previously warned that an influx of migrant kids was straining the system.
In March, he wrote that 'unprecedented pressures in special education, transportation, and services for English Learners' were leading to 'financial pressures.'
The school district educates some 3,500 in the leafy Boston commuter town
Hundreds rallied for an end to border crossings, sanctuary cities, and housing for undocumented immigrants in Boston, Massachusetts, in May
This would lead to 'adjustments throughout the budget,' he warned.
The school district did not answer The Mail's request for comment.
The controversy has heightened fears in the town, 17 miles south of Boston, and elsewhere in Massachusetts, that an influx of migrants is straining social services.
A recent report from the for the Center for Immigration Studies, says migrants will cost the wealthy state a staggering $1.8 billion over the next two years.
The 50,000 non-legal migrants who've entered the state since Joe Biden became president are putting a costly strain on schools, healthcare, and other services.
Even though some non-legal migrants will work and pay taxes, this revenue will not come close to the cost of social services for all 355,000 of them, says report author Jessica Vaughan.
Migration expert Jessica Vaughan
'These migrants represent a looming fiscal disaster for taxpayers in Massachusetts,' Vaughan told the Mail.
'Even if they are working, they are not equipped with skills and education to avoid being a drain on public coffers.'
Her report comes amid a testy 2024 presidential race, with Republican nominee Donald Trump using immigration as a weapon against his rival, the Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
Republicans dub Harris a failed 'border czar,' as she was tasked with tackling the root causes of migration from Central America, even as illegal border crossings smashed records.
Still, the number of illegal entries has dropped in recent months to levels not seen since the Trump administration, and it remains unclear how the issue will drive voting in November.
Trump, for his part, has vowed to launch mass deportations if he returns to the White House.
Though more than 2,000 miles from the southern border, Massachusetts has seen some 50,000 newcomer illegal migrants since January 2021, says the study.
Some joined relatives, others sought jobs in Boston, Worcester, Springfield, and other big cities.
Others used buses provided by officials at the frontier, and a few dozen were controversially flown to the Massachusetts island of Martha's Vineyard by Florida's Republican Gov Ron DeSantis.
They were at first greeted with open arms by a Blue state that affords 'sanctuary' protections to migrants.
Migrants are no longer allowed to sleep overnight at Boston's Logan Airport
A taxpayer funded class in computer skills for the influx of migrants in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston
More than half of Americans want to see mass roundups and deportations of undocumented immigrants
In recent months, however, the mood has changed to frustration.
Gov. Maura Healey recently announced that migrants would no longer be allowed to sleep overnight at Boston's Logan Airport, after dozens of families had been bedding down there for months.
Migrants slept at the emergency department of Boston Medical Center until last year, when they were told to stop.
Still, newcomers keep on showing up at the facility and have been seen resting outside on benches.
Plans for a shelter for migrant families on Cape Cod have met stiff opposition from residents, who called the proposal a 'nightmare.'
The Republican-led city of Taunton was so vexed by state officials sending migrants to an emergency shelter in its 155-room Clarion Hotel that it sued the owners for safety violations.
Vaughan's report also documents the outrages committed by law-breaking migrants in Massachusetts.
They include a cocaine-smuggling Dominican, a Russian fraudster, and a Guatemalan man who was arrested for child rape.
But the most shocking case involves Haitian migrant Cory Alvarez, 26, who is behind bars fighting charges that he raped a disabled teen girl at his shelter in the Comfort Inn in Rockland.
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat, has called for action at the border and money to servuces running on in her cash-strapped state
A few dozen migrants were controversially flown to the Massachusetts island of Martha's Vineyard by Florida's Republican Gov Ron DeSantis.
Some 30 migrant families were bedding down in the Terminal E at Boston's Logan International Airport in January
The influx of migrants has further strained social services in a state that was already battling troubling levels of homelessness
Massachusetts already spends $1 billion each year on emergency shelters, but Vaughan says this masks the real cost on taxpayers.
The influx of newcomers under Biden, including some 10,000 children, 8,500 of whom travelled without an adult, is further straining education, healthcare, and other social services, it adds.
Over the next two years, the combined cost of food stamps, schooling, health care, and public safety could reach a jaw-dropping $1.8 billion, says Vaughan.
That 'fiscal time bomb' represents a sizable chunk of the state's $58 billion budget.
Gov. Healey, a Democrat, in January joined eight counterparts from other migrant-hit states, asked the White House and Congress for action at the border and billions of extra dollars to keep services running.
But, according to Vaughan, even an emergency grant won't solve Massachusetts' spending woes over the coming years.
Instead, state lawmakers need to cut welfare payouts to migrants and get tough with employers who hire those without papers, she said.
They should also end sanctuary policies that stop immigration officers from launching deportation raids, and even 'tap into' the remittance flowers migrants send back to their families overseas, she added.
The Governor's office did not answer our request for comment. The White House and other migration experts have argued that newcomers often work hard, pay taxes and help to grow an economy.