BOSTON — The “unprecedented” migrant wave that slammed Boston Logan Airport forced airlines to pick up some of the $779,000 tab covering Massport’s response to the thousands of arrivals.

Massport estimates 5,500 migrants flew into Logan from July 2023 through last July as the quasi-state agency increased “security, terminal cleaning resources, and transportation costs to best manage” the international airport.

Tailoring to the migrants cost Massport $779,000 in “supplemental public safety, transportation and janitorial services expenses,” and $332,000 of that amount was “incorporated into the airline’s rates and charges paid by air carriers.”

Massport says it “absorbed” the remaining $447,000 as the airport often saw more than 100 migrants stay overnight in a designated unused corner of Terminal E – Logan’s primary international terminal.

The information has come to light after GOP Texas Sen. Ted Cruz threatened to subpoena Massport after the agency stonewalled his requests seeking details about illegal immigrants living at Logan, which he said “had been acting as a sanctuary airport since at least July 2023.”

Cruz received responses from Massport last week to questions that he and other Republicans on the Senate Commerce Committee asked the agency a year before, on March 4, 2024.

Massport’s March 5 response came the same day that the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, which Cruz chairs, voted in an executive session to vote on a subpoena authorization.

“Massport put fliers at risk by housing unvetted illegal immigrants in Logan Airport then chose to pass increased costs onto airlines,” Cruz said in a statement earlier this week. “When I opened an investigation into this process, Massport did not cooperate. Now, faced with the imminent prospect of a subpoena, Massport has agreed to turn over requested documents in ten days.

“This is a victory for congressional oversight,” he added, “the taxpayer, and for the traveling public who ultimately paid for Biden’s failed immigration policy.”

In its response to the questions, Massport outlined per requirement that it “consulted” and “the commercial airline tenants accepted” that the $332,000 and “all airport operating expenses were being included in airline rates and charges calculations.”

The agency stated taxpayer dollars were not “used directly or indirectly to pay the costs.”

A spokesperson for Cruz told the Herald on Thursday that the senator believes Massport’s responses “require some clarification,” and the committee has asked follow-up questions.

Massport spokesperson Jennifer Mehigan said the committee requested a “lookback on activities at Logan that concluded this past summer.” Gov. Maura Healey banned migrant families from sleeping at the airport starting last July 9, a move that forced the oftentimes large crowd to find new places to sleep.

“We are working closely with the Committee,” Mehigan said in a statement to the Herald on Thursday, “and appreciate their patience as we gather the documents and respond to questions to voluntarily cooperate fully with their request.”

A majority of the migrants that Massport encountered at Logan came to the airport via air, and the agency stated in a response that it assumed “screening had previously been conducted through TSA checkpoints and/or the (Customs and Border Patrol)” before their arrival.

“There was no criminal or security screening program conducted for migrants at Logan,” the agency stated, “nor did any federal or state law enforcement entity request Massport to support such a program. Massport transported migrants to the state centers for additional processing.”

At the wave’s peak, last May 14, 352 migrants stayed overnight in Terminal E, a designated area where Massachusetts State Police were “specifically assigned nightly to address any safety or security issues that might arise. Massport’s Fire Rescue also had a separate detail on some nights.

“There were from time-to-time minor conflicts which were immediately addressed,” Massport stated in a response. “None of these incidents required arrest or criminal charges.”

Massport highlighted that Logan averaged less than 100 migrants staying overnight between July and November 2023, with the highest nightly averages coming last April (181), May (265), and June (262).

The Healey administration said the decision to bar people from sleeping on the floor of the airport came as an overflow shelter opened at a former prison in Norfolk last summer. The overcrowding at Logan triggered Healey to convert a Roxbury community center into another shelter last winter, displacing popular community programs for months.

More than $1.3 billion in state funds has been shelled out since the start of fiscal year 2024 to emergency assistance shelters – a program initially created to house homeless families with children and pregnant women but also now caring for migrants in the Bay State.

Cruz said in the March 5 committee hearing that he made similar requests to the City of Chicago and the Port of New York and New Jersey, “both of which engaged and provided requested documents and communications.”

The senator said his staff contacted Massport nine times by email and phone after he sent the letter last March. A lack of response caused Cruz to send another letter last August instructing the agency to “preserve all records referring or relating to (1) the housing or sheltering of illegal aliens at airports or airport facilities, (2) law enforcement incidents involving illegal aliens at or involving an airport, and (3) communications with federal officials.”

Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, a Democratic member of the commerce committee, said last week that Cruz expanded his request on Feb. 24, seeking a “vast amount of documents and communications from Massport related to migrants sleeping at Logan Airport,” dating back to January 2021.

“This isn’t the good governance investigation that the committee has historically been known for,” Markey said. “This is a fishing expedition. … There are many more important issues that we should be debating in this committee.”

Cruz fired back: “Apparently the senator from Massachusetts believes it is a fishing expedition to want to know, and if violent criminal illegal aliens threaten or actually committed acts of violence against the traveling public.”

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