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As Democratic leaders in Massachusetts triple down on resistance against federal intervention to clamp down on crime, a migrant shelter whistleblower is sounding the alarm about an increase in crime in neighborhoods across the state and especially in Boston.
Jon Fetherston, who ran one of the state-funded migrant shelters in Marlborough, Massachusetts, and blew the whistle about rampant crime and sex abuse taking place in the hotel shelter system. He now says that since Democratic Gov. Maura Healey closed down the shelter system, there has been an uptick in domestic violence, sex trafficking, shoplifting and even auto accidents.
“The Healey hotels were well known for having sex trafficking, domestic violence. We’ve reported cases of rape, unfortunately, in there,” Fetherston said. “Now, you’ve opened it up to all of the cities and towns in Massachusetts.”
$30K IN MIGRANT HOUSING AID HAS DEM GOV ON HOT SEAT FOR ‘REVOLVING DOOR’ POLICY
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey pause to look at the Army cots set up on the gym floor as state and local officials toured the Melnea A. Cass Recreational Complex housing immigrants during the Biden administration. (John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
This comes as Healey has pushed back against the Trump administration’s federal crime crackdown in Washington, D.C., and preemptively criticized any intervention in Boston as “political theater.”
“More political power grabs from Donald Trump,” Healey wrote in a statement posted to X, adding, “We don’t need or want his interference here.”
In response, Fetherston said, “How the governor just wants the public to believe that all of these things will not happen is extremely naive and extremely dangerous.”
“Governor Healey wants you to think she just snaps her fingers and closes all of the hotels and then disperses people into the communities that the thousand incidents that were reported back in 2024, and the state has refused to release the data for 2025, she just thinks that those serious instances aren’t going to happen in the communities that now she’s forced people into.”
Referencing the high-profile case of illegal immigrant Harjinder Singh allegedly causing an auto accident in Florida that killed three, Fetherston said, “you’ve seen the national stories of unlicensed or illegals with driver’s licenses and CDLs. I haven’t seen that, but I’ve seen a tremendous uptick in car accidents.”
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Harjinder Singh is escorted to an airplane by Florida Lt. Gov. Jay Collins and law enforcement on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, in Stockton, California. (AP Photo/Benjamin Fanjoy)
Fetherston said that Boston has been particularly impacted by the rise in crime.
“Your eyes tell you all you need to know. Crime is on an uptick in Boston. Things are not good in Boston,” he said. “Boston was once a great city. It is no longer a great city. It is a city that with open drug use, the crime rates have spiked.”
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, also a Democrat, has rejected the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on illegal immigrant crime or to send the National Guard to the city.
Wu has said, “In Boston, we comply and follow all of the laws, city, state and federal. And we will not back down from communities that have made us the safest major city in the country.”
Wu has also commented, “This is a beautiful, diverse, incredible city, and I have said it now very directly, this administration needs to stop attacking cities to hide their own failures.”
In response, Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons has vowed to “flood” Boston with federal agents.
MARYLAND GOVERNOR SAYS HE WOULD ‘ABSOLUTELY WELCOME’ FEDERAL SUPPORT IN CRIME CRACKDOWN
A Colombian national is arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) removal officers in Boston. (Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
To Fetherston, an increased ICE presence would be welcome, while Wu’s resistance is indefensible.
“How any elected official could not put public safety as the biggest priority of any job that they do, it’s disgusting to me and it’s very concerning,” he said, adding, “Mayor Wu wants to tell you that Boston is one of the safest cities. No, your eyes tell you that Boston has in great decline.”
Regarding threats by the Trump administration and Homeland Security to intervene in Boston and Massachusetts, Fetherston said he believes that “anybody who lives in a crime-ridden area, which there are a lot in Massachusetts, will appreciate the effect of it.”
“I’ve talked to business owners, I’ve talk to local law enforcement, anybody who wants to have a sensible conversation about fixing crime in their community, they support what the president’s doing and wants to do,” he explained. “Yeah, some people probably don’t like the optics because maybe they don’t understand it. And the media is doing, in my opinion, doing a bad job of describing it. Tanks are not rolling down people’s streets. The National Guard’s not walking with guns into your backyard and stuff like that. We’re just there to protect and serve, and that’s what your local police does.”
“If you don’t want that as an elected official, I don’t want you as my elected official,” he said.
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Boston Mayor Michelle Wu speaks at a press conference. Wu has said, “This is a beautiful, diverse, incredible city, and I have said it now very directly, this administration needs to stop attacking cities to hide their own failures.” (Brian Snyder/REUTERS)
Fox News Digital reached out to the offices of Healey and Wu but did not immediately receive a response.
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White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson commented on Healey and Wu’s resistance by saying, “If these Democrats focused on fixing crime in their own cities instead of doing publicity stunts to criticize the President, their communities would be much safer.”
“Cracking down on crime should not be a partisan issue, but Democrats suffering from TDS [Trump Derangement Syndrome] are trying to make it one,” she went on, adding, “They should listen to fellow Democrat Mayor Muriel Bowser who recently celebrated the Trump Administration’s success in driving down violent crime in Washington DC.”
Bowser’s office declined to comment further, referring Fox News Digital to the mayor’s prior statements.
