One wonders if Davenport Mayor Bill Gluba is seriously interested in being something other than a Democrat hack and race-baiter whose political demeanor, when it isn’t holier-than-thou, is one of snide attacks on conservatives? If so, he will need to provide definitive answers to the questions being raised regarding his agitation to bring immigration line jumpers, largely dependent on welfare services, into the city.
Mayor Gluba’s burden is to establish how his actions are not unfair to desperate people waiting in line seeking to be legal immigrants, why his actions do not adversely impact our nation’s ability to absorb their arrival, and one way or another why his actions will not cause an arrogation of tax dollars to more and more illegal immigrants.
Responsible politicians are raising such issues with the Obama administration which has initiated policies that effectively invite illegal immigration. The following is excerpted from an authenticated report in the publication New American. Written by Jack Kenny, the full article is available here. Kenny quotes a letter written by Governor Bill Haslam of Tennessee to President Obama taking issue with the infusion of hundreds of Central Americans into his state without notice to his state’s authorities. Bold typeface is our emphasis.
“This influx of immigrant children could have a significant impact on state and local governments.” The state needs to be informed “prior to any additional unaccompanied immigrant children being released in Tennessee,” the governor wrote, while seeking “immediate answers” to the following questions about the children already sent to his state:
1. What was the process for determining that these children should be released to sponsors in Tennessee?
2. How did you locate and evaluate the fitness of their sponsors?
3. What medical screenings were the children given prior to their release in Tennessee?
4. What is the official immigration status of these children and their sponsors?
5. In what localities are these children now residing?
6. What are the legal requirements concerning the provision of services for these children while they are in the state?
7. What additional information is available on these children, such as age and health status?
8. How long will these children be in Tennessee?
Haslam expressed particular concern about the impact the additional youngsters might have on local school systems and the ability of administrators to plan for them:
The start of school is approaching for many districts across the state, and the federal government’s actions have caused great uncertainty around this issue.
Five other governors signed a letter to the president last week expressing similar concerns . . .
“We are concerned that there will be significant numbers who will end up using public schools, social services and health systems largely funded by the states,” said the letter signed by Governors Robert Bentley of Alabama, Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Sam Brownback of Kansas, Pat McCrory of North Carolina, Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania, and Gary Herbert of Utah. The governors said they were troubled to learn that the federal government is not requiring that relatives who are taking in the children be citizens themselves.
“This raises real questions as to whether these children will maintain appropriate contacts with our legal system and will follow necessary procedures designed to protect both them and the American public,” the governors wrote. Nearly half of the immigrant children who are sent to live with relatives fail to show up for immigration proceedings, they said. While federal law allows the immediate return of Mexican and Canadian children caught crossing the border illegally, those from other countries are entitled to deportation hearings. . .
“They’re here, and they’re staying, and whatever else might happen to them is at least a year or more away,” Doris Meissner, a former Immigration and Naturalization Service commissioner, told the Journal. . . .
In the meantime, problems facing municipal officials and school boards include not only the number of migrant children that may be placed in their school districts, but the language barriers they bring with them. Since most of the latest arrivals are said to be from the Central American countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, few are likely to speak or understand English. Many are even illiterate in Spanish, “requiring ramped-up remedial Spanish lessons before they can be taught English,” Richard McKenzie, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, wrote in an article for National Review. . . .
Our view is that the actions of Mayor Gluba in calling for 200 illegal* minors to be located here for no one knows how long, will necessitate the equivalent of the construction and staffing of a special needs school besides the provision of many other costly social welfare subsidies, including housing and healthcare. Gluba is doing this without the specific approval of representative tax writing legislative bodies.
Mayor Gluba also speaks to the public in terms that the illegal immigrants will be hosted as a charity venture when he isn’t invoking the absurdity that tax payers in this city are not on the hook because federal money is available. It is absurd not only because Davenport residents pay federal taxes but because of the pretense that costs will not be born also by local and state taxing bodies, if not concurrently at the outset then as federal funds inevitably run short of true costs.
We reiterate questions asked or suggested in earlier posts. How will the “charities” implicated by Gluba actually be funded for the entirety of the services they would be providing? Are they not often contractees for various publicly funded programs? Will they be reimbursed for the provision of services to any extent by public funds now or in the future for services related to what is at issue, or to replace resources shifted to the provision of related services at issue? Unless the charities are purely donor funded, because of the fungibility of money, taxpayers are being mislead by Mayor Gluba.
R Mall
* Last week we excerpted an article from the Center for Immigration Studies titled 2008 Trafficking Law Largely Inapplicable to Current Border Crisis. Ann Coulter’s column this week succinctly makes the same point, in her inimitable style, that the sex trafficking provisions of the law Obama and open border liberals are using to allow tens of thousands of essentially rank and file illegal immigrants into the country does not apply. The misled border rushers from Central America can and should be turned back, just as Mexican minors necessarily are, because the law does not apply. If our border is not controlled and immigration is not orderly then we do not have a country.
