毒品逮捕、家庭暴力、强奸：马萨诸塞州收容所报告了 1,000 多起严重事件
【中美创新时报2025 年 1 月 12 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）新发布的马萨诸塞州记录显示，在 20 个月的时间里，马萨诸塞州的紧急家庭收容所报告了 1,000 多起严重事件，其中包括十多起涉嫌性犯罪，该计划的规模扩大了三倍，并扩展到全州的酒店和汽车旅馆。《波士顿环球报》记者Stephanie Ebbert、Deirdre Fernandes 和 Neena Hagen Globe 对此作了下述详细报道。
州长莫拉·希利（Maura Healey）的政府在 12 月下旬提供了这些记录，就在四天前，一名无证移民在收容所计划的一部分里维尔酒店因携带 10 磅芬太尼和一支突击步枪而被捕。
此次逮捕促使希利周一下令立即检查所有庇护所设施，并“全面审查”这些设施的接收程序。然后，周四，她的政府承认没有对庇护所居民进行犯罪背景调查，希利向马萨诸塞州居民保证，早在 3 月，在庇护所发生一起强奸案后，就一直在进行犯罪背景调查。
周五，希利告诉记者，她正在下令对所有庇护所居民进行背景调查，并正在任命前波士顿警察局局长爱德华·戴维斯审查该系统的安全协议。
最近在里维尔引起轰动的逮捕事件并不是第一次在庇护所单位发现枪支和毒品。另一份事件报告显示，2024 年初，波士顿警方指控一名居民的伴侣在她所在大楼后面的停车场贩毒。报道称，警方在居民儿子的卧室里发现了一把枪和九颗子弹、900 颗药丸和 30 克可卡因。
州共和党主席艾米·卡内瓦莱 (Amy Carnevale) 引用了这次逮捕和其他一些事件作为证据，表明希利政府早就意识到了庇护所存在的问题。
“在聚会上，我们都知道希利可以接触到这些数据，而且在她任职期间，庇护所系统一直在发生犯罪行为，但希利的震惊表情并没有引起我们的共鸣，”卡内瓦莱说。“我们不确定她是否只是不知道之前发生过这些事件，或者她不想承认。”
众议院共和党领袖布拉德·琼斯 (Brad Jones) 称希利未能进行背景调查是“严重背叛公众的信任”，并要求停止为庇护所系统提供资金，直到“实施有意义的改革”。
“无论是无能、顽固还是疏忽，都必须做出改变，”琼斯周五表示。“是时候让负责人下台了。”
州住房机构的一位发言人本周早些时候表示，对安全构成威胁的庇护所居民已被驱逐，官员们与当地警方合作展开调查。他说，官员们还对紧急援助庇护所系统进行了安全改进，包括提供 24 小时现场工作人员。
“我们把居民的安全和福祉放在首位。我们绝不容忍暴力、犯罪活动或违反庇护所政策和规程的行为，”发言人诺亚·邦巴德 (Noah Bombard) 表示。“在违反庇护所政策的情况下，居民将受到纪律处分，包括被逐出该计划……绝大多数紧急援助庇护所居民都遵守规定，找到工作，上学，努力离开庇护所并获得永久住房。”
这些庇护所曾一度包括全州 128 家酒店和汽车旅馆，根据马萨诸塞州独特的庇护权法为家庭提供服务，该法承诺为孕妇和无家可归的家庭提供儿童食物和临时住所。在过去两个财年中，该计划已花费纳税人总计 11 亿美元，预计本财年也将花费类似金额。
希利周五表示，她可能愿意修改法律，使其仅适用于马萨诸塞州居民，她认为该法律的意图不是涵盖“一波又一波”抵达该州的人。
有关庇护所问题的指控在《波士顿环球报》 4 月份要求提供的 3,000 多页公共记录中展开，而该州花了近九个月的时间才公布。《波士顿环球报》要求提供过去三个日历年的文件，并将其分析重点放在 2023 年 1 月至 2024 年 8 月期间，当时对庇护所的需求激增。
这些文件揭示了庇护所内部问题的严重程度，这些庇护所本应是移民和无家可归家庭的安全避难所。它们显示了频繁发生的家庭暴力案件、几起性交易指控、斗殴和医疗紧急情况、偶尔发生的死亡和过量用药。
在一家用作庇护所的酒店，一名女孩告诉一名案件经理，她的妹妹在生日聚会上遭到性侵犯。一名住在庇护所的拼车司机被指控强奸一名乘客，他回来与家人一起住了将近一周，直到检察官带着传票出现。其他报道记录了之前播出的有关万宝路酒店收容所的指控，一名父亲被指控使其 14 岁的女儿怀孕，另一名父亲被指控与两名青少年睡觉。
引起希利愤怒的里维尔酒店毒品逮捕案没有被包括在内，因为它发生的时间太近了。在那起案件中，多米尼加国民莱昂纳多·安杜哈尔·桑切斯被指控持有近十几件武器和与毒品有关的罪行。
这些被大量删减的文件通常只披露初始事件，没有迹象表明那些被指控犯罪的人是否被指控或定罪。 地点也被删减，因此无法看出哪些收容所可能是麻烦的热点。 这些表格被称为严重事件报告，由州住房和宜居社区执行办公室在事件发生时收集。 每个负责监督收容所的组织都必须立即提交严重事件报告，如果警察、消防或救护人员被叫来；如果收容所收到媒体询问；如果家庭或工作人员的安全受到威胁；或者如果庇护所的某人需要入院治疗。
这些文件显示了庇护所工作人员（包括国民警卫队和非营利组织工作人员）如何努力应对紧急援助计划中出现的问题，该计划一次最多为 23,000 人提供服务。这是一个与 Stoneham 规模相当的人口，他们生活在贫困中，而且距离很近，经常住在酒店或聚集地。
4 月份，《波士顿环球报》首先要求提供报告记录，但州政府官员最初只提供了汇总数字。《波士顿环球报》的律师随后与 Healey 的律师进行了谈判，后者要求给予时间删除可能泄露庇护所位置或识别特定人员的信息。
Healey 政府辩称，通过隐瞒细节，它保护了弱势家庭（包括移民）的隐私，这些家庭的出现引发了抗议，包括一些新纳粹团体的抗议。
希利发言人卡丽莎·汉德指出，有必要“保护弱势家庭和提供者的安全和隐私，他们已经成为仇恨和骚扰的对象。”
报告明确指出，家庭庇护所最常见的麻烦来源之一是家庭暴力。
甚至在移民大量抵达马萨诸塞州之前，当庇护所主要由当地家庭居住时，家庭暴力报告就很常见。研究表明，贫困带来的经济压力与家庭暴力的普遍性增加有关，许多母亲在逃离伴侣虐待后无家可归。
在 20 个月的时间里，至少有 176 份报告提到了家庭暴力。
《波士顿环球报》此前曾报道过庇护所发生的几起令人不安的事件，包括新获得的报告中反映的两起强奸案。其中一起案件发生在皮博迪酒店，据称一名孕妇被强奸和殴打。 34 岁的海地国民 Marc Kervens Beauvais 被美国移民和海关执法局逮捕并拘留，但检察官没有继续审理此案。
“起诉家庭暴力和性侵犯案件的主要困难之一是受害者是否愿意参与，”埃塞克斯地方检察官办公室发言人 Michael Keefe-Feldman 通过电子邮件表示。“受害者有时由于多种原因无法出庭作证。”
3 月份的另一起案件中，一名 15 岁女孩称，当她前往洛克兰收容所的一名海地移民房间寻求帮助修理她的 iPad 时，一名移民强奸了她。26 岁的 Cory B. Alvarez 因强奸罪被起诉，并否认了这一指控。当选总统唐纳德·特朗普在竞选连任期间提请关注这一指控，两名国会议员对 Alvarez 是如何进入美国的展开了调查。该案还引发了人们对家庭收容所内部安全的担忧，因为从定义上讲，收容所里挤满了儿童。正是这起案件导致希利错误地向公众保证每个参与者都会接受背景调查。
周五，希利表示，去年春天，她命令收容所对所有居民进行背景调查。她无法解释为什么没有遵守这一命令，并称这一失败“绝对不可接受”。
《波士顿环球报》还在 5 月份报道称，尽管希利保证，但州政府已将有孩子的无家可归家庭与性犯罪者安置在至少六个州营收容所中。这些男子被判犯有针对儿童的罪行，包括强奸儿童、猥亵儿童和殴打儿童以及儿童色情。《波士顿环球报》发现，州政府官员表示，他们将重新安置这些男子，但至少有一名性犯罪者在同一家酒店收容所呆了四个月。
正如新发布的严重事件报告所表明的那样，即使是最恶劣的犯罪行为也并不总是能实时发现。
吉米·皮埃尔 (Jimmy Pierre) 是自 2023 年 10 月以来一直住在收容所的一个家庭成员，他于 5 月因强奸一名拼车乘客而被传讯并被关押在监狱。目前尚不清楚他被关了多久，但他已经离开收容所七周了。在等待起诉期间，他得以返回收容所与家人一起生活。据一份报告和州住房发言人称，他的指控近一周都没有被发现，直到检察官带着传票出现。米德尔塞克斯地方检察官办公室最终在调查得出结论“我们无法排除合理怀疑证明此案”后放弃了此案，一位发言人说。
住房发言人邦巴德说，此后，该州于 7 月开始每 30 天对收容所接受者进行一次搜查令检查。
严重事件报告还详细介绍了一系列其他暴力事件。
在社会工作者来接走一名父母企图自杀的孩子后，一家酒店收容所发生了骚乱。照看孩子的家庭和其他人对被带走感到不安。两名个案工作者不得不从紧急出口逃走，一名个案工作者被几家人围在车里，他们敲打窗户，阻止汽车移动。据报道，收容所工作人员向警方求助，后来要求将涉事家庭转移到其他地方。
据报道，去年收容所发生的四起自杀未遂事件之一就是这起自杀未遂事件。两名母亲试图通过喝漂白剂结束生命，其中一名母亲在便条上写道，她正在努力应对“生活压力，以及搬到美国，而且她还没有工作。”
报告还显示，至少有两起收容所工作人员担心一些女孩可能被贩卖。在其中一起事件中，一名个案工作者表示，她将报警，一辆载有成年男子的蓝色 SUV 不断从收容所接走两姐妹，并将她们关在外面长达四晚。工作人员获得了转移这个家庭的批准，但文件没有提供更多细节。
36 岁的 Nuribel Amparo 已经在皮博迪的一家酒店收容所住了大约一年，她告诉《环球报》，她和她的三个孩子在那里感到不安全。来自多米尼加共和国的安帕罗说，她听到其他居民整晚都在喝酒、聚会，还听到酒店户外露台上有人贩毒和吸毒的传闻。
“我什么都见过，”她在庇护所的停车场用西班牙语说道。“警察经常来这里——现在这已经是常态了。”
安帕罗说，酒店已经实施了新规定，比如要求每个人都走前门而不是后门，所有居民进入大楼时都要登记。不过，作为一名单身母亲，她经常担心自己的孩子，不让年幼的孩子在走廊里玩耍。“我感觉不平静。我睡不好，”安帕罗说。“你不能这样生活。”
尽管希利表示她愿意接受进一步的改变，但她已经对庇护政策做出了一些改变，试图控制这个庞大的系统。11 月，该州宣布将逐步停止使用酒店，并试图让人们更快地搬进住房。由于联邦庇护政策的变化阻碍了入境，近几个月的需求也有所下降。据该州报告，一度每天有大约 40 个家庭寻求庇护；到秋天，这个数字下降到 15 到 18 个家庭。
这篇报道已更新，包括希利关于庇护申请人背景调查的最新公告。
《环球报》工作人员 Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio 对本报告做出了贡献。
题图：里维尔的 Quality Inn 是无家可归者和移民家庭的临时收容所。John Tlumacki/Globe 工作人员
附原英文报道：
Drug arrests, domestic violence, rapes: More than 1,000 serious incidents reported at Mass. shelters
State reports also show domestic violence incidents are commonplace
By Stephanie Ebbert, Deirdre Fernandes and Neena Hagen Globe Staff,Updated January 11, 2025
The Quality Inn in Revere that is operating as a temporary shelter for homeless and migrant families. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff
Newly released state records show that more than 1,000 serious incidents, including more than a dozen alleged sex offenses, were reported at Massachusetts’ emergency family shelters during a 20-month period that saw the program triple in size and expand into hotels and motels across the state.
Governor Maura Healey’s administration provided the records in late December, just four days before an undocumented immigrant was arrested with 10 pounds of fentanyl and an assault rifle at a Revere hotel that is part of the shelter program.
The arrest prompted Healey on Monday to order an immediate inspection of all shelter facilities and a “full review” of intake procedures at those facilities. Then, on Thursday, her administration acknowledged that it hadn’t been performing criminal background checks on shelter residents, something Healey assured Massachusetts residents had been happening back in March, after an alleged rape at a shelter.
On Friday, Healey told reporters she is ordering background checks for all shelter residents and is tapping former Boston police commissioner Edward Davis to review the system’s security protocols.
The recent headline-making arrest in Revere was not the first time guns and drugs were found in a shelter unit. Another incident report shows that, early in 2024, Boston police charged a resident’s partner with drug trafficking in the parking lot behind her building. Police found a gun and nine bullets, 900 pills, and 30 grams of cocaine in the bedroom of the resident’s son, the report said.
Amy Carnevale, chair of the state Republican Party, cited that arrest and others as evidence that the Healey administration had long been aware of problems in the shelters.
“The expression of shock really rang hollow with us at the party, knowing that she had access to this data, that crimes had been occurring in the shelter system for her entire tenure in office,” Carnevale said. “We’re not sure whether she simply was not made aware of any of these previous incidences, or she didn’t want to admit it.”
Brad Jones, the Republican leader in the House of Representatives, called Healey’s failure to conduct background checks a “serious betrayal of the public’s trust” and demanded funding for the shelter system be halted until “meaningful reforms are implemented.”
“Whether it’s incompetence, intransigence, or negligence, changes must be made,” Jones said Friday. “It’s time for heads to roll.”
A spokesperson for the state housing agency said earlier in the week that shelter residents who posed safety threats were evicted and officials worked with local police to pursue investigations. He said officials also have made safety improvements to the Emergency Assistance shelter system, including providing 24-hour onsite staff.
“We place the highest priority on the safety and well-being of residents. Violence, criminal activity, or violations of shelter policy and protocols are not tolerated,” Noah Bombard, the spokesperson, said. “In the instance of violations of shelter policy, residents are disciplined, including up to removal from the program. . . . The vast majority of EA residents are following the rules, getting jobs, going to school, and working hard to exit shelter and get permanent housing.”
The shelters, which at one time included 128 hotels and motels around the state, serve families under Massachusetts’ unique right-to-shelter law, which promises pregnant women and homeless families with children food and temporary shelter. The program has grown to cost taxpayers a total of $1.1 billion over the past two fiscal years and is expected to cost a similar amount this fiscal year.
Healey on Friday suggested she might be open to changing the law so that it would apply only to Massachusetts residents, arguing the law’s intent was not to cover “waves and waves of people” arriving into the state.
The allegations of problems at the shelters unfold in more than 3,000 pages of public records that the Globe asked for in April, and that the state took nearly nine months to release. The Globe requested documents for the past three calendar years and focused its analysis on the period between January 2023 and August 2024, when demand for shelter soared.
The documents reveal disturbing details about the extent of problems inside shelters that are supposed to be safe havens for migrant and homeless families. They show frequent cases of domestic violence, several allegations of sex trafficking, fights and medical emergencies, occasional fatalities, and overdoses.
At one hotel being used as a shelter, a girl told a case manager that her sister had been sexually assaulted during a birthday party. A ride-share driver who’d been living in the shelter and then was charged with raping a passenger came back to live with his family for almost a week until a prosecutor showed up with a subpoena. Other reports document allegations previously aired about a Marlboro hotel shelter, where one father was accused of impregnating his 14-year-old daughter, and another was accused of sleeping with two teenagers.
The Revere hotel drug arrest that drew outrage from Healey is not included because it happened so recently. In that case, Dominican national Leonardo Andujar Sanchez was charged with nearly a dozen weapons and drug-related crimes.
The heavily redacted documents typically reveal only initial incidents, giving no indication whether those accused of crimes were ever charged or convicted. The locations are also redacted, making it impossible to see which shelters might have been hot spots of trouble. Known as Serious Incident Reports, the forms were collected by the state Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities as they occurred. Each organization overseeing a shelter is required to submit a Serious Incident Report immediately if police, fire, or ambulance crews are called in; if the shelter receives media inquiries; if there’s a threat to the safety of a family or staff member; or if someone at the shelter requires a hospital admission.
The documents show how shelter workers, including the National Guard and nonprofit staff, struggled to cope with the problems that arose in the Emergency Assistance program, which has been serving as many as 23,000 people at a time. That’s a population the size of Stoneham living in poverty, and within close proximity, often in hotels or congregate sites.
The Globe first requested a log of the reports in April, but state officials initially provided only aggregated numbers. Lawyers for the Globe then negotiated with attorneys for Healey, who requested time to remove information that would reveal the location of shelters or identify specific people.
The Healey administration has argued that by withholding details, it is protecting the privacy of vulnerable families, including migrants, whose presence has prompted protests, including some from neo-Nazi groups.
Healey spokesperson Karissa Hand has pointed to the need to “protect the safety and privacy of vulnerable families and providers, who have already been the subject of hate and harassment.”
What the reports make clear is that one of the most frequent sources of trouble in the family shelters is domestic violence.
Even before migrants began arriving in large numbers in Massachusetts, when the shelters were primarily occupied by local families, domestic violence reports were common. Studies have shown that the financial stresses of poverty are linked to the increased prevalence of domestic violence and that many mothers become homeless after fleeing partner abuse.
Domestic violence was cited in at least 176 reports during the 20-month time.
The Globe has previously reported on several troubling incidents at shelters, including two of the rapes reflected in the newly obtained reports. One was a case at a Peabody hotel in which a pregnant woman was allegedly raped and assaulted. Marc Kervens Beauvais, 34, a Haitian national, was arrested and taken into the custody of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, though prosecutors did not proceed with the case.
“One of the major difficulties in prosecuting domestic violence and sexual assault cases is the willingness of the victim to participate,” Michael Keefe-Feldman, a spokesperson for the Essex district attorney’s office, said via email. “Victims are sometimes not in a position to testify for a multitude of reasons.”
In another case, in March, a 15-year-old girl said a fellow Haitian migrant raped her when she went to his room at a Rockland shelter, seeking help fixing her iPad. Cory B. Alvarez, 26, was arraigned on a rape charge and has denied the allegation. President-elect Donald Trump drew attention to the charge during his reelection campaign, and two members of Congress launched an inquiry into how Alvarez was able to enter the country. The case also raised concerns about security inside the family shelters, which are, by definition, filled with children. It was that case that led Healey to erroneously assure the public that every participant undergoes a background check.
On Friday, Healey said that last spring, she ordered shelters to perform background checks on all residents at intake. She could not explain why that order was not followed and called the failure “absolutely unacceptable.”
The Globe also reported in May that — despite assurances from Healey — the state had placed homeless families with children alongside sex offenders in at least six of the state-run shelters. The men had been convicted of crimes against children, including child rape, indecent assault and battery on children, and child pornography. State officials said they would relocate the men, but at least one sex offender remained in the same hotel shelter for four months, the Globe found.
And as the newly released Serious Incident Reports make clear, even the most egregious criminal offenses are not always detected in real time.
Jimmy Pierre, a member of a family that had been staying in a shelter since October 2023, was arraigned and held in jail in May on charges he raped one of his ride-share passengers. It’s unclear how long he was jailed, but he was absent from the shelter for seven weeks. While awaiting prosecution, he was able to return to the shelter to live with his family. His charges went undetected for nearly a week, until prosecutors showed up with a subpoena, according to a report and the state housing spokesperson. The Middlesex district attorney’s office eventually dropped the case after an investigation concluded that “we could not prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt,” a spokesperson said.
After that, in July, the state began conducting warrant checks of shelter recipients every 30 days, said Bombard, the housing spokesman.
The Serious Incident Reports also detail an array of other violent incidents.
A commotion broke out in one hotel shelter after social workers came to remove a child whose parent had attempted suicide. The family baby-sitting the child and others became upset about the removal. Two caseworkers had to flee through an emergency exit and one was surrounded in a vehicle by several families who banged on the windows and blocked the car from moving. Shelter staff called the police for help and later requested the families involved be transferred to another location, the report said.
That attempted suicide was one of four such incidents last year at the shelters, according to the reports. Two mothers attempted to end their lives by drinking bleach, with one writing in a note that she struggled with “life stress, and around the move to the USA, and that she didn’t have a job yet.”
The reports also show shelter workers in at least two instances were concerned that some girls might have been trafficked. In one incident, a caseworker shared that she would be alerting police that a blue SUV with adult men kept picking up two sisters from the shelter and keeping them out for up to four nights. The worker got approval to transfer the family, but the documents offer no further details.
Nuribel Amparo, 36, who has been living in a hotel shelter in Peabody for about a year, told the Globe that she and her three children feel unsafe there. Amparo, who is from the Dominican Republic, said she has heard other residents drinking and partying throughout the night, and heard rumors of drug dealing and drug use on the outdoor patio of the hotel.
“I have seen everything,” she said in Spanish in the parking lot of the shelter. “The police always frequent here — it’s something normal now.”
The hotel has implemented new rules, such as requiring everyone to use the front door instead of the back, and having all residents sign in when they enter the building, Amparo said. Still, as a single mother, she worries frequently about her children and doesn’t let the younger ones play in the hallways. “I don’t feel calm. I don’t sleep well,” Amparo said. “You can’t live like this.”
While signaling she is open to further changes, Healey has already made some changes in shelter policy to try to contain the sprawling system. In November, the state announced it would be phasing out the use of hotels and trying to move people into housing more quickly. Demand has also dropped in recent months, as federal changes in asylum policy discouraged entry. At one point, about 40 families were seeking shelter each day, the state reports; by the fall, that had dropped to 15 to 18 families.
This story has been updated to include Healey’s latest announcements about background checks of applicants for shelter.
Giulia McDonnell Nieto del Rio of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
