Gov. Maura Healey offered a rare nod of approval to President Donald Trump’s immigration policies Tuesday, saying “some” of the decisions the Republican made this year to restrict access for migrants trying to enter the U.S. at the border make “a lot of sense.”

Massachusetts experienced a surge in migrant arrivals over the past two years that placed a strain on state-run emergency shelters. But shelter caseloads started to decline over the winter after a series of new rules imposed by the Trump, Biden, and Healey administrations took effect.

After an unrelated event at the State House on Tuesday, Healey said she had told Biden that he needed to act on the border and “shut it down two years ago, three years ago now.”

“I think that some of what Donald Trump has done on the border makes a lot of sense,” Healey told reporters. “I won’t get into specifics, but the general move and recognition that there needed to be more control brought to the border is absolutely correct. And certain things have been done that make a lot of sense.”

Trump has overseen a broad crackdown on immigration into the U.S.

His policies have suspended the asylum system, forced some migrants to wait in Mexico while their immigration cases play out, and stripped legal protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans.

His administration also emboldened U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to carry out deportations all across the country, including several that have resulted in high-profile legal challenges like the case of Tufts University graduate student Rumeysa Ozturk.

Critics, including Healey, have slammed some of Trump’s policies and deportation cases as inhumane and overreaches of governmental powers.

And even though Healey said she agreed with some of the president’s moves, she made clear that there “are certain things that the Trump administration is doing now that don’t make sense.”

“Nobody in this country should have ICE come into their home or into a place of work without due process rights, right? And I think that that’s a real problem right now. They’ve just gone too far in terms of the issue of immigration, and that’s creating incredible fear and community and causing a lot of heartache and anxiety,” said the first-term Democrat from Arlington.

Healey and other Democratic lawmakers on Beacon Hill have implemented their own far-reaching restrictions on the state-run shelter system that was set up decades ago to house homeless families with children and pregnant women.

Those cutbacks included time limits on families’ stays, requirements that shelter residents provide proof that they are lawful in the country, and strict compliance measures to ensure households were working toward stable housing.

The rules came after shelters peaked at more than 7,600 families in July 2024, a level that pushed the system to a breaking point and led lawmakers to spend hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars to cover massive costs.

Healey touted the effects of those policies Monday.

Her administration said the number of families in shelter is expected to drop below 4,000 “this summer” as officials moved to close all of the costly hotels and motels serving as temporary housing sites.

The governor said she was “really pleased” about the reforms and making a “better system for families and for dealing with the issue of housing in the state.”

“But I just want to say it’s also why we need to continue to build housing,” she said. “Because people struggle with affording rent, affording housing. And I think the top priority out of this administration, after cutting taxes, was building more housing.”