Thread: Hundreds Of Immigrants To Be Sheltered At Border Patrol Training Academy

June 26, 2014 7:22 AM


U.S. Border Patrol agents escort a group of undocumented immigrants into custody with helicopter support from the U.S. Office of Air and Marine on May 20, 2013 near the U.S.-Mexico border in Havana, Texas. (credit: John Moore/Getty Images)

ARTESIA, N.M. (CBS Houston/AP) — Hundreds of illegal immigrants are going to start being sheltered at the Border Patrol training academy in Artesia, N.M.

Up to 700 immigrants are expected to arrive at Federal Law Enforcement Training Center by the end of the week.

New Mexico state lawmakers said they were not told of the plan until last week.

“It raises a lot of suspicion and creates a lot of distrust, as far as the community goes,” state Rep. Candy Spence Ezzell told KOAT-TV. “Each one of these rooms will have eight bunk beds. There will be televisions and play things for kids … it looks like a better pre-K program than what our kids will be experiencing.”

Ezzell questioned the use of federal dollars to house the immigrants at a time when veterans aren’t getting proper health care and she’s encouraging residents to speak out about the facility.

“I was told this is federal. Did they not understand that it is the tax payers’ dollars that are funding them federally?” Ezzell told KOAT.

Ezzell also noted the irony of housing immigrants at a Border Patrol facility where people are being trained to stop immigrants from crossing the border illegally.

On Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer toured a holding facility in Nogales that is housing hundreds of children that have been apprehended at the border over the past few weeks.

“Dang it, the federal government has got a job to do,” she said. Asked whether the state should provide resources during what many say is a humanitarian crisis, Brewer said only that the federal government has made it clear she does not have any authority in addressing illegal immigration. Brewer was referring to a federal lawsuit against Arizona after Brewer signed into law the sweeping immigration bill known as SB 1070.

Thousands of Central American families and unaccompanied children have been coming to the U.S. in recent months as they flee violence, murders and extortion from criminal gangs in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. Many of them are under the impression that they will receive leniency from U.S. authorities once they get here.

“I want to continue to emphasize to all those who are listening, including the parents of kids, parents that may be considering sending their kid from Central America, that this journey is a dangerous one and at the end of it there is no free pass, there is no ‘permisos’ for your children to come to the United States,” Johnson said.

But while Johnson has vowed to spread his message, Brewer says the federal government is not doing enough to stop the migration.

Immigration officials have also released a large number of women with children who crossed the border illegally into Texas, dropping them off at Greyhound stations in Phoenix and Tucson with the expectation that they will report back within 15 days. Officials have declined to answer how many have actually reported back.

Border Patrol agents have apprehended more than 52,000 immigrant children crossing the border alone since the start of the budget year last October. That included 9,000 in May alone.

The department is also using military bases in Texas, California and Oklahoma to house the children before they are placed with a parent or relative.

http://houston.cbslocal.com/2014/06/...ining-academy/

I have turned this story over in my mind for several hours trying to find some common sense to doing this for housing of aliens. I cannot find a way to relate this to common sense. It is an act of desperation, that is all I find in putting this plan into active reality.

I'm glad to see communities refusing to be dumping grounds, but I have reservations about the wisdom of this. It provides unnecessary set ups for so many mistakes and persons signing up to break enforce the law to be tempted to be coerced into law breaking. I guess I say that I'm uncomfortable with this idea, period.

In addition, what does it really say to a young person with intent to enforce the law then has to aid and abet THE President in breaking law? Sick, sick, sick. Is it any wonder that like after Nixon, now probably now after Obama we will see large spikes in crime? We need heroes, not criminals for our young people to admire!