Erie County, NY, whose county seat is Buffalo, has “demanded” that Mayor Adams of New York City stop sending illegal migrants to the area. Since June, about 540 illegals had been shipped to the town of Cheektowaga in north-central Erie County. There they were put up in three different hotels. All went officially well for a short time, but then came the sexual assaults.
In one, an “asylum seeker” from Venezuela was arrested for raping a woman while a three-year-old child watched. Another involved a native of Democratic Republic of Congo who was charged with sex abuse and unlawful imprisonment after allegedly attacking a hotel employee.
That left Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz with egg on his face. When earlier this year Mayor Adams announced upstate shipment would be one of his policies to ease NYC’s migrant crisis, Poloncarz, like any properly woke bureaucrat, heartily endorsed the plan. He even declared that local orders blocking migrants were not only illegal, they were “morally repugnant.” Now he has “demanded Mayor Adams pause all further transportation of asylum seekers to our community until such time as we can resolve all security issues.”
This marks, as it were, an about-face for Poloncarz. Funny how a dose of reality changes one’s fervent moral viewpoints.
Erie is not by itself in attempting to bar the door to illegal migrants. Of New York’s 62 counties, more than half have taken similar steps. For her part, NY Gov. Kathy Hochul announced she would be sending National Guard troops to the county to “help stabilize the situation.” According to the NY Division of Military and Naval Affairs, the New York National Guard has about 10,400 members. So far, 1,800–approaching 20 percent–of them are already involved in some way with the migrant crisis. Considering the potential numbers — NYC has received about 107,000 illegal migrants in the past year and a half — Hochul may need a bigger army.
For more, see Syracuse.com.