The Obama administration will no longer house illegal immigrants at an Oklahoma military base and two others, but Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin wants President Barack Obama to ensure that Fort Sill in Oklahoma will not be reopened in the future for such purposes.
On Monday, Fallin said that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) informed her that Fort Sill’s detention center for illegal immigrants will be closed on Friday, but she indicated that she was “disturbed the administration chose to renew its lease on the facility, thereby preserving the option of reopening it in the future.” She called on Obama “to set the record straight once and for all: will this facility be reopened, or can we trust that it has closed for good?”
“We know that illegal immigration naturally dips in the summer months, as temperatures rise at our southern border. Because of that decrease, the federal government has been able to empty the facility at Fort Sill and process the illegal immigrants they have brought to Oklahoma,” she said in a statement. “There is nothing to stop this administration, however, from reopening the shelter at Fort Sill later in the year as the number of illegal immigrants apprehended naturally increases.”
The Obama administration will reportedly close down the Lackland Air Force Base in Texas and the Ventura County Military Base in California in the next two to eight weeks. Those facilities, along with Fort Sill’s, have housed over 7,000 illegal immigrants in recent months.
The Obama administration has been housing illegal immigrants at Fort Still since June 13. And after illegal immigrants were sent to the state without officials having been notified, Fallin asked Obama in a previous letter to end the “secrecy” surrounding release of illegal immigrants. She also started a petition to close Fort Sill’s detention center for illegal immigrants.
As Breitbart News reported, six of the seven members of Oklahoma’s Congressional delegation urged the Obama administration to close the facility down, and Rep. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK) mentioned that housing illegal immigrants at Fort Sill “is a very real threat to U.S. military readiness.” Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) declared that housing illegals at the facility constituted a national security threat. Fallin emphasized that “moving forward, I would like the president to give his word that this facility will remain closed permanently.”
“As I have said for weeks, opening this facility at all was an improper use of our military base. It was a public health hazard,” she said. “It was also an attempt to find a band-aid solution to a much larger border crisis caused by President Obama’s unwillingness to enforce our laws and secure our borders. I am relieved – as are many Oklahomans – to hear this facility will be closed by the end of the week. We can now use it as it was intended: as a military resource to house and train soldiers.”
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.