Thread: NC: Charlotte could be home to immigrant children (ALIPAC)

Charlotte could be home to immigrant children (ALIPAC)


Tony Burbeck, WCNC 7:51 p.m. EDT August 15, 2014


Charlotte could soon be home to a shelter for unaccompanied immigrant children pouring across United States border.(Photo: NBC Charlotte)



CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Charlotte could soon be home to a shelter for unaccompanied immigrant children pouring across United States border.

Immigrants are being held in detention centers until the government determines their status.

"We don't really like the idea of kids sitting in jail, young children who essentially are in barracks," said Jess George, executive director of the Latin American Coalition.

George says a Greensboro company has a federal contract to open a shelter for them.

Caldwell Presbyterian Church in uptown Charlotte is offering a 50-bed day shelter.

"To show some caring and compassion to these children while their legal status is being worked out," said Pastor John Cleghorn.

The shelter could open in October, but it is not a done deal. The church is just one option.

William Gheen, with Americans for Legal Immigration, says bringing detained kids here could mean protests and heat up the already intense immigration and border protection debate under President Obama's watch.

"He's working to try to disperse illegal immigrants to the interior of the United States as rapidly as possible where the chances they will ever be located or reported after that are less than five percent," he said.

Any kids who come have to be educated. That is something officials are considering, as well as financial and legal support.

CMS says anyone who enrolls will be put in schools and their immigration status cannot be checked.

"Every illegal immigrant that enrolls at a public school system, that is a form of theft from the North Carolina taxpayer," Gheen said.

"Will we be a community that says when people are suffering and we have the opportunity to help them, we open our arms and our hearts, or will we be a community that says no, you're not our children," George said.

The humanitarian crisis at the border has already made its way to Charlotte.

Officials say 400 kids already reunited with their families are living in Charlotte and waiting for the courts to determine their legal status.

Video at source link~

http://www.wcnc.com/story/news/local...dren/14127439/