All those “sanctuary” and “right to shelter” ideas were fine for northeastern states as long as they remained well insulated from the U.S. Southern border. But once Southern states began shipping a few illegal migrants north to states like New York and Massachusettes, all that changed.
All last week, protests involving hundreds in New York City centered around the mayor’s plans to convert a disused Catholic school on Staten Island, now owned by the city, to a 300-bed migrant shelter. The opposition is so strong that there is now a secession movement arising that would separate that borough from NYC.
Further north, the governor of the state of Massachusetts has called up the National Guard to transport a wave of illegals to shelters around the state, of which there are way too few to accommodate the surge. On Saturday, dozens of protesters showed up at the Yarmouth Resort motel, where the governor plans to relocate Haitian migrants. The Yarmouth facility is just one of more than 1,500 shelters that have been set up across the state since 2022. The protesters charged that the state was placing a higher priority on the need of migrants than on the need of its homeless citizens. Currently, there are about 20,000 persons living in state-provided shelters in the state.
When Southern governors like Greg Abbott of Texas began shipping migrants to sanctuary cities and states, their actions were dismissed as mere stunts, and the leaders of the receiving municipalities doubled down on expressing their whole-hearted welcome. As the surge has continued unabated and the numbers of migrants needing food, shelter, education, and everything else have piled up, the residents are showing their displeasure.
Meanwhile, the White House drowses and continues to mutter, “The border is closed, the border is closed.”
For more, see the New York Post.