Families seeking asylum do not need to be screened

The state’s highest court found that Massachusetts housing authorities cannot require families seeking emergency placement in homeless shelters to provide third-party verification of key information such as identities and relationships at the time of their initial application, according to a decision released Thursday. according to the decision released Thursday.

Amid the housing and migrant crisis, this decision could make it easier for homeless families in the state to obtain emergency shelter.

In a 16 page decision Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Associate Justice Gabriel Vologodjian said the case hinges on a single question of how to interpret state law. Specifically, does Beacon Hill’s directive that the Executive Office of Housing and Communities immediately provide shelter for up to 30 days to eligible families allow that agency to require certain information, such as the identity of each family member and relationship to each other, to be verified by an external authority as a precondition for granting temporary asylum?

“We conclude that this is not the case,” the judge wrote. “The simple wording of the immediate placement provision provides that a family must receive immediate temporary placement if the family is found to meet the criteria for asylum eligibility, and that the appearance of eligibility for asylum can be established at the time of the initial application based on the family’s statements by members and information already in the agency’s possession.”

For years, state officials have required third parties to verify that at least one adult family member applying for temporary asylum is a Massachusetts resident, according to court filings. There have been cases where families were unable to provide such verification and officials were unable to confirm the information through other means, resulting in families being denied temporary asylum, according to Thursday’s decision.

A class action lawsuit challenging this policy was first filed in 2016. Messages sent to the state Executive Office of Housing and Communities were not immediately returned Thursday morning. Likewise, attorneys for the plaintiffs in the case did not immediately comment.

The decision comes amid an ongoing housing and immigration crisis in Massachusetts. Earlier this week, Massachusetts officials endorsed a report with broad proposals to alleviate the situation in the state. overloaded emergency shelter systemas the annual cost of operating the network rises amid growing demand from migrants and Massachusetts residents facing homelessness.

The report comes as the public system faces increasing numbers of people seeking support. cost taxpayers more than $1 billion. this fiscal year. While Gov. Maura Healey added new limits during a temporary stay in a shelter this year’s report found that if current trends continue, the system of emergency housing will continue to address the funding gap.

The shelter system, previously designed to accommodate 3,500 families, has more than doubled that number in recent years to approximately 7,500 is the limit Healy imposed on the system last year. The state estimates that about 3,600 of the families in the emergency system last month were migrants, refugees or asylum seekers.

The report highlights how costs for the system have risen sharply: The state spent $155 million on the program in fiscal year 2017, while lawmakers this fiscal year More than $500 million has already been committed, according to the report. But that’s still not enough: The state will need the Legislature to approve another $400 million this fiscal year, officials expect.

In the court case, the state cited safety concerns by “housing adults and children in close proximity in group shelters and argued that requiring third-party verification of identity and family relationships before granting asylum helps mitigate those concerns,” according to the court. to court materials.

The plaintiffs’ attorneys, meanwhile, argued that requiring some form of vetting, “which people in crisis may well not have when they initially seek short-term temporary shelter, deprives them of the protections that the Legislature intended them to receive while they were on in its place.” the most vulnerable.”

In Thursday’s SJC decision, Vologodjian wrote that “both sets of policy issues have good reasons to recommend them.”

“It is not our task, however, to choose between them because the plain text of the immediate posting provision is unambiguous and accordingly is determinative of the intent of the Legislature,” she said in the decision.

Anjali Huynh of the Globe staff contributed to this report. This developing story will be updated.

Danny McDonald can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @Danny__McDonald.