Mass. Gov. Under Fire as Former Migrant Shelter Director Blows the Whistle on Cover Up [WATCH]

A former Massachusetts migrant shelter director accused Gov. Maura Healy of presiding over widespread crime, financial waste, and systemic coverups inside state-funded migrant shelters, saying the experience was “the biggest mistake” of his life and calling for the governor to be held criminally accountable.

John Featherston, who previously ran a migrant shelter in Massachusetts, made the allegations during an exchange with Nate Friedman, describing what he said were unchecked crimes, taxpayer-funded waste, and directives from state leadership that discouraged law enforcement from intervening.

“My name is John Featherston. I’m a former migrant shelter director in Massachusetts. It was the biggest mistake of my life, the biggest mistake of my life,” Featherston said.

When Friedman asked directly whether he believed Gov. Healy should face prosecution, Featherston did not hesitate.

“I believe Maura Healy should go to jail for the rest of her life for the crimes that she’s committed,” he said.

Featherston argued that once migrants were brought into Massachusetts under the governor’s policies, the state assumed responsibility for their safety and conduct.

“Yes, the governor’s first priority is to protect the people. Once they came to Massachusetts because she invited them, she was responsible for them,” he said.

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He accused the administration of concealing serious crimes.

“She’s covered up rapes, she’s covered up crimes. She’s covered up sex trafficking, she’s covered up drug dealing that we’re not even talking about the financial piece at its capacity,” Featherston said.

According to Featherston, financial waste was rampant inside the shelter system.

He described a facility housing roughly 550 people across 150 rooms, with four individuals per room.

Despite vacancies, he said the state continued to bill taxpayers for unused space.

“Back a year ago, I would have 10 empty rooms, but the state would still get billed $180 a night for those 10 empty rooms,” he said.

“They would still get billed for the meals in those rooms too.”

Featherston characterized the system as government-funded housing with no private accountability.

“So there is a tremendous amount of waste and or fraud, but this is government subsidized housing. There’s no other way to describe it,” he said.

“Your taxpayers, the taxpayers, are paying for everything that goes inside these four walls. So it’s not private property.”

He said public scrutiny intensified after disturbing incidents became national news.

“The fact that they’re this defensive a year after this has become like a national story, because a man you know, impregnated his own daughter, and these in the shelter, it’s quite obviously they got something to hide,” Featherston said.

Featherston described shelters as environments plagued by violence and criminal activity.

“So there’s a lot of domestic violence inside these shelters,” he said.

“It’s called it’s a cultural thing. A lot of Haitian men don’t have a lot of respect for women, it seems like. So there’s often a lot of physical violence. There’s a lot of women on women violence in these shelters.”

He also said prostitution and drug dealing were common. “So the police would come all the time,” he said.

“You know, when I had reports of like, sex trafficking, you know, they would come, you know, drug dealing, they would come. A lot of prostitution in that parking lot.”

Featherston claimed police were discouraged from enforcing the law due to directives tied to the governor’s office.

“I would talk to police officers, and I’d be like, Hey, I know this car is not registered. I know it’s not insured. What are you going to do about it?” he said.

“If it was you, I’d arrest you. If it’s them, I just let it go.”

According to Featherston, officers cited political pressure.

“Why? Well, the governor wants this, and the governor has come down and given us a mandate that, you know, we don’t give the migrants a hard time, and we don’t, you know, arrest them because they don’t have driver’s license. We just give them stern talking,” he said.

Featherston also criticized media coverage, saying the public has been kept in the dark.

“You don’t know what’s going on, because the legacy media is quite obviously afraid of the governor,” he said.

“The governor has told them, Don’t report on this.”

He said local outlets failed to report on conditions inside the shelters.

“You don’t see these stories by the local media. You only see them by the national media and guys like you, you know, doing the real journalism,” Featherston said.

He concluded by accusing state leadership of abandoning vulnerable Americans in favor of migrant programs.

“We’ve lost our way. We’ve lost our way,” he said.

“We’re not taking care of veterans. We’re not taking care of low income seniors, but we’re giving everything free to migrants.”

WATCH:

The Governor of Massachusetts @MassGovernor charged the tax payer for empty migrant shelter hotels. I went to the facility myself. Enough is enough. pic.twitter.com/LIcDUnASkZ

— Nate Friedman (@NateFriedman97) December 30, 2025