Protests from local elected officials in Maryland this weekend forced the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) to cancel its plans to send illegal immigrant children to an Army Reserve center in Westminster, which is about 35 miles from Baltimore.
Maryland Democrat Gov. Martin O’Malley said illegal immigrant children flooding across the border should be considered “refugees” and all be given asylum status, but after Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) publicized the federal government’s last-minute plans to sneak illegal immigrant children into Maryland, there was considerable blowback. HHS backed off, citing things like insufficient access to drinking water at the facility.
In a Monday appearance on WBAL radio in Baltimore, Harris said he found out late Thursday evening about the Obama administration’s plans and “hit the ground running on Friday morning” to stop it from happening.
“We have to send a very clear message to HHS that this is crazy,” Harris said.
Harris also acknowledged that until the message gets sent clearly that illegal immigrant children will not be given amnesty or be allowed to remain in the country for years, billions of dollars in more government spending will not solve what he called an “emergency” at the border.
Protestors in Murrieta, California have been turning back bus after bus of illegal immigrant children, some of whom had scabies. And protesters will organize Tuesday in Oracle, Arizona to try to prevent the federal government from dumping illegal immigrants in their blue-collar community.
“These unaccompanied minors who have entered our nation illegally must not be brought to Carroll County, Maryland. Flying them to Maryland only to turn around and fly them back home is nonsensical,” Harris said last week. “Should this Administration attempt to put them in Carroll County, I will use every tool at my disposal though the appropriations process to stop this.”
He said “Obama should immediately return them to their nation of origin” and fix the problem he created.
Despite O’Malley’s contention that the illegal immigrant children should not be sent back to what he says is “certain death,” residents of Maryland of all backgrounds have expressed concerns.
Last Friday, as Breitbart News reported, Elaine, “a black caller from Baltimore, Maryland told Laura Ingraham on her radio show that she was ‘living a nightmare’ because her ‘whole neighborhood is so violent.’ She wanted to know where she could get refugee status in her own country.”
“There’s so much crime,” she said. “I have gangs everywhere here in Baltimore! I can’t let my daughter ride her bicycle outside – I can’t do anything, Laura! I’m trapped here.”
Elaine said Democrats like President Barack Obama “want billions to help illegal immigrant children, but ‘nobody is saying a word’ about poor Americans or Americans trapped in violent neighborhoods.”
“Well, what about my neighborhood? You don’t have to do it in Beverly Hills, but in the inner cities where we are suffering,” she said. “My children cannot play outside. I cannot take my trash out without locking the door – it’s awful. Who is going to give us anything? Where can I get asylum? Where can I get refugee status? I don’t know what I can do. Nobody cares what happens to my children.”
As Breitbart News has noted, “at least 57,000 illegal immigrants, mostly from Central America, have crossed the border since October of last year, and another 150,000 are estimated to do so next year. The number of illegal immigrant children flooding across the border spiked just after President Barack Obama enacted his temporary amnesty program for certain DREAMers in 2012, and many migrants have said they made the journey to America because they did not fear that the Obama administration would deport them.”