Recent revelations about crime and violence in the state’s emergency shelters have provided a new flashpoint as lawmakers on Beacon Hill get ready to take up the Healey administration’s nearly half-billion dollar funding request for the cash-hungry system.
And the emerging battle lines are familiar ones, with echoes of the broader, nationwide debate over illegal immigration and the specter of mass deportations.
The shelter system was back in the spotlight again this week in the wake of a Boston Globe story revealing more than 1,000 “serious” incidents, including rapes and sexual assaults, in state-funded sites…