Providing emergency shelters and other services for migrants coming into the country without a place to stay will cost the Massachusetts state government more than $900 million this fiscal year and a similar amount next fiscal year, state officials said.
The state was housing 3,516 families who entered the United States "as migrants, refugees, or asylum seekers" in emergency-assistance shelters as of Tuesday, December 12, according to a report from state released this week. Some 7,531 families were in the emergency assistance shelter system that day, according to State House News Service.
A Massachusetts judge chose a public school for a child as a default over a religious school in a dispute between the child's estranged parents.
That decision bothered at least two of the three members of the Massachusetts Appeals Court panel who heard the case Tuesday, who noted that the standard for making decisions in custody disputes is "the best interest of the child."
