Things are getting altogether too xenophobic around here.
The town of Dedham is divided over homeless immigrants being sheltered — as state law requires them to be — in a local hotel and other locations. But a Zoning Board of Appeals meeting on Feb. 21 really brought the ick.
At issue, ostensibly, was a variance to allow a catering company already doing business in town, feeding 400 or so people in a nearby hotel, to expand their operation so they can provide meals for shelter residents elsewhere in the region. Those meals would feed both migrants and other homeless families who are longtime residents of the state. They wanted to add a few employees, and vans to make deliveries.
This was not a proposal to shelter more immigrants in Dedham, or to pay for the expansion of the private operation with municipal funds. Still, one speaker after another got up to oppose it, many of them using the occasion to vent their disgust at immigrants getting something for nothing, and at their expense. One man said cooking more meals in a hitherto shuttered restaurant would turn the street into “Mass and Cass,’’ a center for homelessness and drug use in Boston.
“I’d like to know why we’re just continuing to give them this, give them that, give them all these handouts,’’ one woman said, “instead of actually helping them assimilate.’’
If these people could talk to these migrants, they’d find plenty who are desperate to “assimilate,’’ to get out of their cramped hotel rooms and go to work, but who cannot yet get work permits to do so. Several people got up to try to explain this, to no avail. The expansion request was defeated.
Opponents were less polite on Facebook, according to screenshots shared with the Globe. They called the migrants “disgusting,’’ and harbingers of a crime wave, and called a Black woman who spoke in favor of the proposal a racist “crisis actor.’’ One said the migrants’ presence at a local store made them feel like he was living in a third world country: “Will there be chickens running around next?’’ he lamented. “Maybe a few goats?’’
This is ugly, but look, I don’t want to pick on Dedham. Yes, it does seem to have more than its share of MAGA devotees and openly xenophobic blowhards. But this kind of hostility to outsiders, this meanness, is all over. The ugly rhetoric coming from Donald Trump’s GOP — his talk of immigrants as criminal invaders, “poisoning the blood of our country’’ — has emboldened bigots in Dedham and beyond.
The fact that the state is straining under the influx of migrants, our leaders begging the federal government for help, fuels the nastiness. Which is exactly what Trump wants: He demanded that House Republicans scuttle a bipartisan border security bill that would have included some $1.4 billion to help our state and others cope with the influx, because keeping Americans angry over immigration makes him more likely to win in November.
But whipping up that anger has dangerous consequences, even in states where he will be trounced.
“It does feel like there has been a rise in the acceptability of this type of xenophobia, with more individuals speaking up in very ugly and concerning ways,’’ said Elizabeth Sweet, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocate Coalition. Members of the coalition’s 100 or so immigrant advocacy organizations across the state have reported more hostility toward the people they serve.
There are plenty of people standing up against that kind of rhetoric. There are folks in Dedham and all over this Commonwealth opening their hearts and doors to immigrants.
In the hopes of growing their ranks, MIRA will launch a campaign on Tuesday called “Courage to Welcome.’’ Rolling out mostly on social media — which is where most of the ugliness and misinformation lives — it will highlight the contributions immigrants make. For example, a recent federal report found that, between 2005 and 2019, the net economic contribution of refugees and asylees approached $124 billion — that’s $124 billion
“This misinformation about immigrants taking more than they contribute is so persistent,’’ Sweet said. “We can be a counter to that.’’
Lord knows the migrants — and so many others — sorely need to hear it.