Since October, more than 57,000 children have crossed over our border with Mexico, requesting asylum. These children, it would seem, are being sent north by their families not only to escape poverty, but the gangs and organized crime syndicates that are increasingly a part of life in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. And, now, thanks to a contract recently awarded to Grosse Pointe Park-based Wolverine Human Services, it looks as though some 120 of these children between the ages of 12 to 17 may be temporarily headed to the small town of Vassar, Michigan… And, judging from the response of Michiganders, you’d think we were being overtaken by an invading army.
Actually, that’s not an exaggeration… “We are under military attack. You can’t tell me to be quiet,” a man yelled during a public meeting in Vassar last night. And he wasn’t alone. Based on video shot at the meeting, which drew over 200 people, a number of folks shared the opinion that what we’re seeing unfold is a coordinated attack meant to undermine our sovereignty as a nation. “The children that are involved here are only pawns,” said Tamyra Murray, a self-described anti-immigrant activist who took the podium last night in Vassar. “They’re a game to control our nation. It’s an invasion, nothing less than an invasion.”
Not only is it a coordinated attack against our nation, in the eyes of some, but our President could very well be behind it. At least that seems to be the opinion of Texas Governor Rick Perry, who yesterday reiterated his opinion that Obama is actively encouraging Latin American countries to send their children to the United States in hopes of overwhelming our immigration system and forcing open our borders.
Here, if you’d like to see what Michiganders look like when they get scared and freak the fuck out, is video shot yesterday in Vassar, where the 145-bed Wolverine Human Services-operated juvenile facility, called the Pioneer Work and Learn Center, is located.
And, now, the national press is all over the story.
“Protesters carrying Gadsden ‘Don’t tread on me’ flags and placards promoting conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ InfoWars website gathered outside the event,” reports RawStory, “and some of them took the microphone to share claims circulating on right-wing websites and social media.”
Pure Michigan, indeed.
Nothing makes me prouder than to hear people of my own state screaming about these children will be infecting the good people of Vassar with everything from lice to tuberculosis while recruiting for South American drug cartels.
I’ll grant you that we need to have a serious conversation about immigration, which is likely only to get worse in the coming years, as people around the world begin to suffer the results of global warming more acutely, but it certainly doesn’t help when you suggest that this is all part of Obama’s grand plan to bring America to its knees… The truth is, we desperately need immigration reform, and, if we’e going to do it right, it’s going to take compromise. We can neither afford to build an incredibly tall wall along the entire 1,989-foot border we share with Mexico, or let in every young person with a heart-breakingly sad story. The answer is somewhere in between, and, sadly, I don’t have much faith that we’ll ever get to it, given the level of polarity that’s been fostered over the past several decades.
In conclusion, here’s one of my favorite Facebook comments from a thread started today by Michigan Congressman Kerry Bentivolio. It’s not one of the most extreme. I just like it because it’s from a man whose Facebook page features a header of Jesus on the cross. I found the irony delicious.
Another mandate of the government, if I’m not mistaken, is to given asylum seekers an opportunity to plead their case… Apparently, though, we can pick and choose what laws we follow, and the fear of dark-skinned, lice-covered foreigners trumps everything else.
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It’s also worth noting that they’ll likely only be in Michigan for about four weeks, while they’re waiting to go before the court and make their case for asylum. Most of them, no doubt, will eventually be sent back over the border.
I am curious as to which “communicable diseases” these people are referring to.
Lice are already present in the US. I’m not sure what they are talking about.
Oh, wait, they are bigots. There is no way to rationalize this.
What if, in exchange for food and shelter, they worked the rest of their lives in our mines and factories? Might that not be a compromise that everyone could live with? I say, neuter them, sell them, put them below ground, and forget about them.
Or, Hunger Games.
Do these people ever bother to take a moment and ask themselves……am I going to choose love or hate? Maybe that sounds naive to some people but really, it all boils down to that. You make the choice and your behavior is guided by it. Choose love and you find yourself guided by compassion for others. Choose hate and feel how fear guides you. Hate and fear, hand in glove.
I love the idea of these 120 fifteen year old kids taking over their city, giving everyone lice, and getting all of their daughters pregnant.
There’s nothing new under the sun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Irish_sentiment
I was only able to hang in there for ten minutes. The alarm bells were going “jingo, jangle, jingo.” I am so ashamed that these are the people who are trying to ruin, er I mean run our state. Twenty years ago, we seemed to welcome Central Americans into our country, now we are afraid they will take over the US. How? By threatening our way of life! They will soon control our vital food supply! Only by picking our own beans, cherries, and sweet corn will we be able to provide for ourselves! This pencil neck and Bentivolio don’t speak for me, that’s for damned sure.
I used to live in the Thumb, not too far (10 miles?) from the farm that gave shelter to Timothy McVeigh. Nice to see that my fellow Thumbians are just as tolerant as ever!
It’s like Pearl Harbor all over again!
I’ve seen this happen in my own (Polish heritage) family. “Those damn (you name it). Send them back to their own country”. The only fun I have is telling them that I agree with them and they should start by sending those damn stupid Polacks back. Thats all they do is breed and make the whole population dumber anyway.
Tamyra Murray being interviewed.
http://devinanddoug.com/Podcasts/Interviews/2013_07_12_Tamyra_Murray.mp3
That area has a long and rich history of Hispanic culture with migrant workers coming through for seasonal farm labor and many putting down roots. Michigan’s greatest contribution to world culture, punk rock, was begun by in 1966 by some Mexican-American teenagers about 20 miles from Vassar.
I’ve been watching media coverage of angry Americans at our southern border waiving signs and yelling slogans, insisting that the children – most of whom are refugees of the drug war we’ve created — “go home” to the violence and death that war has created, and I wonder who these angry Americans are. I also wonder where their parents or grandparents or other ancestors came from, and what they were fleeing from or hoped for when they landed in America. I’m not suggesting we allow in anyone who wants to come here, but these are desperate children. Whatever happened to the generosity, decency, and big-heartedness of this country? Emma Lazarus’s poem engraved in 1903 on the Statue of Liberty reads: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of our teeming shore. Send these, the homeless tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Why are we now allowing the hateful side of America to take center stage?
Graffiti on proposed shelter for immigrant children in Maryland: ‘No illeagles here.’
See photo:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/graffiti-on-proposed-shelter-for-immigrant-children-in-maryland-no-illeagles-here/2014/07/14/cc89610a-0b89-11e4-b8e5-d0de80767fc2_story.html
When we decided to get rid of The Hurons as our team name, didn’t we consider the Ill Eagles?
We’re a nation of laws, folks. And we still have a nation worth preserving – the best nation on Earth for that matter, despite what the lefties will tell you. And any nation’s number one goal is self preservation. We have a president who doesn’t see it this way, doesn’t love our country, never has. He chooses not to enforce our immigration laws and the liberal media lets him get away with it. He makes his own laws, without congress, like a king. He refuses to defend our country’s border. This is the real problem. We’re losing our country. And what follows is loss of freedom.
There is a process to come here legally. Many of those people are on waiting lists and can’t get in. Engineers, etc. Smart, hard working people that would contribute to society. We hold them out and let the illegals flood in. How can this be good for our country? Think, people, instead of reacting with your lefty, hate-America talking points.
You think they will actually show up in court? And you think they will actually be deported, Mark? 4 weeks? Please… Obama signed the executive order already saying children can’t be deported. The flood gates are open, and the world knows it.
Volunteer to take them into your own houses people. Let’s see that happen.
2.5 more years of fundamental transformation from Obama on the way. He vowed to do it, is doing it, and was voted back into office for four more years. So our country is lost. Clueless voters. And we will surely have more and more lefty voters as all the illegals will get I.D.s, etc. Not that you need an I.D. to vote anymore.
See, America in his eyes is a very evil place. We are a greedy, evil, rotten nation that needs transforming. Only government can do it, because government is God. Government knows best.
America is due for a conservative president that loves our country, believes in individual liberty and freedom. It goes in cycles. It’s gone really far left this time around though.
You’re right, Maria. We are a nation of laws. And one of those laws, drafted and signed into being by President George W. Bush and a Republican controlled Congress, spells out how such cases should be handled. The following synopsis comes by way of Think Progress.
Obama is president right now, today, and he refuses to enforce our laws. He’s begging them to come here, and they are coming.
So go through the deportation process, and deport them. But there are so many of them that it’s now unmanageable. So they want to flood the country with them and make everyone pay for them.
When we have a president and administration who won’t protect our border, there is no deportation process. It’s like the wild west. What other country encourages illegals to enter? Here we just change the name, call them unaccounted-for or undocumented, and then lecture Americans on being compassionate. Lots of sense that makes.
Bush wasn’t a very good president, but Obama is president now, for 6 years now.
Think Progress…. you read that? That’s a far far radical left blog.
Maria, you started out by saying that we’re a nation of laws. Then it was pointed out to you that the Republican Congress passed a law that required that these kids be cared for until such time that they can have immigration hearings. This is what it means to live in a nation of laws. If you don’t like them, change them. But don’t condemn Obama for not following the law when that’s exactly what he is doing. You lose credibility that way.
Maria’s comments echo the sentiments of more than one person I know. Does nobody fact check anymore or do they just believe anything told to them by Fox News?
Pshaw maria…Re: Blame Obama Politics: In 2013, as the Republicans took us into sequester, a long list of bad effects was pointed out by ABC News. Just ONE of that long list included this tidbit which if happened would be blamed on the Republicans: “An Even More Porous Border – Border Patrol will face cuts. Department of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano wrote to the committee: “U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) would not be able to maintain current staffing levels of Border Patrol Agents and CBP Officers as mandated by Congress.” Well, it happened and the Republicans who are to blame decided to try and blame it on the Democrats. Hypocrites.
We are a nation of laws, and some laws have been changed due to their injustice. Laws that banned women from voting till 1920, laws that stopped African Americans from riding anywhere but the back of the bus. Some laws are made to broken. How much food do we eat picked by immigrants?
Imagine the desperation driving this, and mean spirited Americans angry and unwilling to help, and yet they continue to risk it. And to hear the House’s remedies (eye roll) …well even the Pope agrees with me…imagine that…
There are Americans without jobs, without housing, without food. Where’s your compassion for them, people? There are vets dying waiting for appointments at the VA. We are completely broke and in debt as a nation.
“Some laws are meant to be broken?” So we should let gang members and diseased kids into our system while Americans suffer?
This is child abuse. What parent sends their kid on a 45-day trip all alone to be raped? Is this right? Some laws are meant to be broken? You are encouraging this?
You all are out of your minds.
Blind ideology is what it is. White guilt. I know your “compassion” is your religion. Bizarre lefty culture.
It’s gonna result in a democrat wipeout in the midterm elections. And a conservative president in 2016. I would take an independent even. Just someone who believes in America, love it. Not someone shoe wants to transform it. We’re losing our country. And the lefties are holding on to their college indoctrination ideology. THE MEDIA! They refuse to hold Obama accountable for ANYTHING. Yep, here comes the all-caps. How many scandals can one president have and just skate by untouched. If it wasn’t for FOX NEWS people, we would have no national press in this country. You all should be thanking Fox. They actually ask Obama questions. And then he says, no questions, no reporters, no photographers. He locks out the media. Think about that. Mark Maynard – you’re a journalist, right? Why do I think you voted for Obama… let’s see… maybe because 90 percent of journalists are democrats? And 90% of journalism professors are dems? But that’s fine because you all are “compassionate.”
Maria,
You’re absolutely right. Thanks for posting. The detention facilities were built years ago, the assistants to help the “refugees” were hired in January, and when the first arrivals get released without deportation the flood of illegal immigrants will quickly overwhelm our infrastructure. Perhaps even necessitating martial law.
Are you guys so afraid of immigrants because of historical problems with immigrants? Like, when all those immigrants arrived from Europe and started what is probably the worst accidental genocide in the history of our species (90% of the population died, probably of small pox). Or when the immigrants rounded up the natives and forced them to live on reservations? Is that why you are afraid of the effects of immigration because as far as I can tell, we really haven’t had a huge problem with immigrants here since then.
I’m not afraid of immigrants. My grandfather was an immigrant. I’m concerned about huge numbers of unaccompanied minors to add to a foster care system that is insufficient already. I’m concerned about the millions of Americans who haven’t been able to find work for years and how much harder it’s going to be to provide for their families. I’m worried about a public school system that has failed this generation of students and how much worse it will be with a huge influx of non-English speaking students. I’m worried about the shortage of doctors and how hard it’s going to be to get an appointment when it is free to anyone who walks across our borders. And I’m concerned that the Federal Reserve will destroy our currency when the nation’s debt becomes overwhelming, how everyone’s 401K will be worth shit, and how all this was facilitated by a government determined to destroy families and separate children from their parents. And it was a succession of Bush – Clinton – Bush – Obama who were all in agreement in bringing about this new world order.
” I’m concerned about huge numbers of unaccompanied minors to add to a foster care system that is insufficient already.”
You will then be happy to know that the vast majority of these children have family here to care for them. Something in the neighborhood of 80%. With that said, we don’t have to have a foster care system which is insufficient already.
” I’m concerned about the millions of Americans who haven’t been able to find work for years and how much harder it’s going to be to provide for their families.”
Since these are *children* who are unlikely to enter the labor force for years, I am not sure why you have that concern. But even so, it may interest you to know that global labor competition is so much greater than labor competition from immigrants that it almost is disingenuous to bring it up.
” I’m worried about a public school system that has failed this generation of students and how much worse it will be with a huge influx of non-English speaking students.”
There is no reason to think that non-English speaking students will be a problem. Kids learn languages very quickly.
” I’m worried about the shortage of doctors and how hard it’s going to be to get an appointment when it is free to anyone who walks across our borders.”
Really? I am not sure how much additional demand immigrants create in the health care system but dare I suggest that any doctor shortage problems could more easily get fixed from the supply side.
” And I’m concerned that the Federal Reserve will destroy our currency when the nation’s debt becomes overwhelming, how everyone’s 401K will be worth shit, and how all this was facilitated by a government determined to destroy families and separate children from their parents. ”
Um, this has nothing to do with immigration.
http://p.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jul/16/overwhelmed-feds-putting-illegal-immigrant-childre/
They can’t even verify that the children are related.
EOS, You’ve convinced me. WE need to spend a LOT more money beefing up our foster care system so that we can be sure that these children and all of the rest of the children in the system are cared for adequately. We can take the money out of the defense budget so no one need pay more taxes.
Lynn – out of the defense budget? What nation in its right mind allows a border invasion, gives up its sovereignty, handcuffs its own military and border patrol? This is about survival as a nation, Lynn. It’s a big scary world out there. You are very short-sighted.
The Boston bombers were granted asylum. Remember them? How they brought the East coast to its knees with fear? And the government told people to hide under their beds. Because they love to take innocent peoples’ guns away from them over there.
EOS is right. Lynn is using club-think. Group-think. It’s no wonder as 90 percent of all media in America is in the tank for the democrats. They’ve convinced a not-so-smart public that America is evil, and needs to be more cut down to size.
And I think it boils down to white guilt. Democrats have been made to feel guilty since grade school. It’s the 60s culture run amok.
Take it out of our defense budget…. because why defend America? We don’t deserve it. We’re too prosperous. The illegal aliens coming from Central America deserve their fair share. Open up your house, Lynn, to some of these kids. But you won’t. Because it’s not safe is it? Yet you think it is safe for America to absorb all these kids? You have no idea who they are. Surely some are terrorists, gang members, diseased. They’ve been told they can get a free ride in America. Obama set the tone. He’s transforming our country, destroying it from within.
But that won’t sink in, will it. No, because group-think means you can’t think independently. Or maybe you do understand but don’t care.
I am way more afraid of people like you, maria, than I am of any foreign invader, fwiw. It is funny too because I probably am even MORE convinced that you are the one, rather than me, who isn’t thinking this through and who has been brainwashed into thinking that our problems come from allowing in immigrants and too many gun control laws. Seriously, I believe that big corporations have used the media to convince people that we need a huge military to protect ourselves when really we need a huge military to protect the foreign interests of those major corporations. The first way we do this, btw, is by calling it “defense” when most of it is in excess of what we actually need to defend ourselves.
I say take it from the defense budget which isn’t the same thing as saying eliminate the defense budget. How much “defense” do we need? Did you know that the USA spends more than every other nation *combined*? Even if we cut our defense budget in half, we would still have the largest military in the world. We could cut it by 90% and we could still adequately defend our nation. Have you ever heard of the concept of “The law of diminishing marginal returns”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminishing_returns
At some point, we just aren’t going to get much additional advantage from another $300 billion stealth bomber. Can you imagine the foster care system we could build with even half of that money?
Anyways, ultimately this comes down to morality I guess so probably there is no point in arguing but I’ll just say that according to the moral code I live by, turning away legitimate political refugees is immoral. It was immoral when we turned away whole ship loads of Jewish refugees before WWII and it is immoral now in this case to turn away anyone escaping the violence in Central America. That is especially so when their problems are at least partly the result of things like our drug policy (and you can call that “white guilt” if you want to but I call it “accepting responsibility for our actions”).
I also think it is immoral to spend so much money on bombs when for a fraction of that money, we could be spending it on the sort of foreign aid which would actually result in our being safer in the long run. Do you think that mistreating their children endears us to citizens of those places where the immigrants are coming from? What if we spent some of our bomb money making things better in Central America?
This is one of the scariest conversations I’ve ever read on Mark Maynard. Should we have big defense system or big foster care system as a matter of public policy to Latin America?
If we eliminated the entire military budget each year, it still would not make up for the annual deficit in the Obama administration. We can’t afford to continue to increase expenditures and still retain a decent standard of living for the majority or a future for our children.
I grew up in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, on of 2 places (the other Anaheim CA) that housed refugee camps for SouthEast Asian refugees. Despite being a very conservative area, the refugees, including children, were absorbed into the community without dispute– most via church organized family ‘sponsors.’ These people too had experienced violence and some had committed horrors in war. They were very grateful for the opportunity to live in peace. Despite the fact that Bethlehem Steel had just closed it’s doors in our town, the oil crisis was on and unemployment was in double digits, the refugees were able to find jobs and housing and be self-sustaining within a few years. My community benefited from their immersion into our culture. The difference was that these war refugees were viewed by the community as anti-communist and so ‘on our side.’ The people in my community felt a sense of duty to help. We did not vilify or condemn children. Something has changed in the tone of American rhetoric. It is ugly and very disheartening. These children are refugees, not illegal immigrants. The GOP helped pass a bill giving them that designation. The Obama administration, which has been no friend to illegal immigrants, is enforcing the law of the land. So can we at least use the appropriate language here? They are refugees. And we opened our doors to them. Now it is our responsibility to provide them with basic human services including health care until they can make it on their own and make our communities stringer. That is the history of immigration in America for the past 200 years. There has always been a segment vilifying the newcomers. Eventually they are all accepted. If you don’t like the rule of law, work to change it. Right now, those kids are here legally– under a law that had broad GOP support.
“If we eliminated the entire military budget each year, it still would not make up for the annual deficit in the Obama administration.”
Where do you get this shit, EOS? Do you make it up, or do you get some kind of newsletter each day?
The Federal spending deficit for FY 2012 was $1,087 billion. The total defense budget for 2012 was $553 billion. Google it.
If we eliminated the entire defense budget of 2012, we would still have grown our debt by a half billion dollars. This is not sustainable and will ultimately destroy our economy and our way of life. The Central banks will impose an austerity program and dictate our standard of living.
Half a trillion. My bad.
The real data is here.
http://www.cbo.gov/publication/45229
Deficits were much higher under Bush, and we’ve been trying to dig our way out since the $1.6 trillion Bush Tax Cuts.
EOS has successfully drawn this story about humanitarian support into another budget debate riddled with half-truths and twisted faux facts. When we draw the conversation away from the kids and into a faulty numbers debate, we neglect what I believe are basic American values (however eroded lately) of offering support to our friends in need– especially those suffering in part due to our strategic action and interference in their countries. There is no way to look at American history and say that anti-immigration stances have any place in core American values. (They may be a historical tendency but not a winning one until very recently. To my friends on the right, I see us as a country pulling away from basic American values too. I find it very upsetting. I am not interested engaging in a budgetary debate. Our congress passed a law without providing adequate funding for its administration. So now what can we do? We offered these kids sanctuary through law. That law will almost certainly be rescinded, but what can we do now that many are here legally. We need to unite and care for them. Our energy should be directed to straightening out this mess. That is what a country does when it believes in personal responsibility. We created a mess via bi-partisan law. We as a country need to figure out a humane solution. Sending them back would be cruel, dishonest and anti-American. It’s that simple.
Your link expresses the deficit as a percentage of GDP, not as real dollars. I’m not defending Bush. We’ve had a deficit every year for as long as I can remember, and the debt grows larger each year. If China and Russia choose to use another currency as their standard our house of cards will fall. No one will buy our T bills, our ability to borrow will be severely restricted, and our standard of living will plumet.
No Jean, humanitarians would have donated their charitable dollars to ameliorate the conditions in Central America. It is not an act of charity to print fiat dollars to enable minors to be separated from their parents and their culture and be institutionalized in a foreign land.
If personal responsibility is an American value how does that support your advocacy of collectivism?
I don’t see them as at all separate EOS. I agree that the law was ill thought out. But it stands, so where is your advocacy for the rule of law now. Here’s the deal when Congress agrees to do something, we need to follow through. The time to reject these refugees is past. Same with the Affordable Health Care act. Work to rescind the laws. Fine. But we can’t not fund government programs we enact into law. Government is a form of collectivism. Our nation is a collective. Perhaps you’d like to do without them. But our government was formed on principals of individual freedom and responsibility. It exists to support them. Until recently, no one thought that meant excluding immigrants. It is not ‘charity’ to fund programs ordered by Congress. I share your deficit concerns but we differ on the best way to address it. If you look at the budget apportionments, it’s pretty clear to me that the pork is in military spending. If we want to stem the tide of refugees from Honduras and Guatemala, ending the war on drugs would be another responsible place to start, rather than charity to Cenral America.
The refugees will not remain institutionalized. They will be allowed to return home to their families if they want. Some will settle with their family members here. Others will be taken into homes as they transition into productive members of society. And my experience has been that, if granted citizenship, they will indeed contribute greatly to society. It is testament to the awful conditions in these countries that families are willing to let their children emigrate under very dangerous conditions for the sake of a better shot at survival. I don’t know about you EOS, but my ancestors left their families and came over here at the same age, 14-16, for exactly the same reason. They were fleeing conditions not nearly as bad as those in Central America.
Just like Detroit, when America falls, know that it was due to liberals that believe in top-down authoritarian big government. See Spain people – 40% unemployment. Government crushed the will of the people to work over there. Just like here, there is no incentive to work anymore when you can just go on many forms of disability.
Fact is we have a radical left president who refuses to enforce the borders. Not only that but he encourages them all to come over and join the welfare system.
All you democrats do is raise taxes, which forces companies to move to Mexico, China, India. Then you raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Again, companies, along with countless jobs, GONE to China. And it’s because people have no clue how an economy works. No appreciation of our capitalistic system, which made us the greatest country on Earth. That’s what it really boils down to – a majority of the U.S. population does not believe in our way of life anymore. You’ve given up on the constitution, our traditions, values, laws even. You see yourselves as global citizens and long for one world government, to redistribute wealth, which only brings everyone’s standard of living down.
Your grandchildren will have to deal with the fallout. But even that isn’t incentive enough to wake you up. You dems, eco-socialists, are just too stuck in your Huffington Post group-think
Congressman Bentivolio will be speaking at a Border Crisis Forum on the 31st in Livonia.
http://imgur.com/ExbaCms
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