A former director of a Massachusetts migrant shelter is blowing the whistle on the disastrous situation wrought by the state's sanctuary policies for illegal immigrants under Democrat Gov. Maura Healey, combined with the Biden administration's open-border policies.
Jon Fetherston, who managed a hotel-turned-migrant shelter in Marlborough, Massachusetts, from November 2023 to July 2024, urged Attorney General Pam Bondi in a letter Monday to investigate Healey's migrant shelter program, calling it "dangerous and corrupt," Blaze News reported Tuesday. Fetherston added there is "a disturbing pattern of criminal activity, sexual assaults, financial abuse, and the widespread use of no-bid contracts."
Fetherston shared the letter he wrote to Bondi on his X account. Among the most concerning failures he observed was rampant criminal activity within the shelters, which posed threats to residents and the nearby community.
He noted disturbing cases of sexual assault, including an instance where a father residing at the state-run shelter was accused of repeatedly raping his minor daughter and impregnating her. He said the incident was not isolated and that he was "aware of other women and girls who were assaulted in shelters that had no adequate safeguards, supervision, or response protocols."
"To this day, no one has been held accountable," Fetherston told Blaze News.
He said despite Healey's claims that individuals undergo background checks before entering state-run shelters, criminals and migrants with active deportation orders were "knowingly placed in family shelters alongside children and vulnerable residents."
"The governor claimed that all migrants were run through the Massachusetts [Criminal Offender Record Information] system," he told Blaze News. "That was a blatant falsehood. She later said she directed her staff to do so but produced no documentation to prove it, and no one on her staff was held accountable.
"Moreover, running migrants through the CORI system only reveals crimes committed in Massachusetts, rendering it nearly useless for individuals arriving from other countries. This was simply more gaslighting from the governor."
Fetherston also outlined widespread fraud within the state's shelter system, which he called "staggering and frankly insulting to taxpayers." He told Blaze News he witnessed vendors bill for services never rendered and government contracts awarded without proper oversight.
He further noted that shelter staff would clock in for work and then leave, that they used the hotel's rooms for personal purposes, booked personal ride-share services through the shelter's account, brought their laundry for the shelter's vendors to handle, and even advised migrants on how to manipulate the immigration system.
"The system is bloated with bureaucracy and lacks meaningful financial accountability," he told Blaze News.
Newsmax reached out to Healey and the DOJ for comment.
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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