As you well have heard by now, there is a major crisis at our nation’s southern border with Mexico. Thousands of illegals cross over our virtually unmanned and unprotected borders dailies, with many of them being unaccompanied minors and children.
According to WGXA-TV, nearly 19,000 children crossed over the US-Mexico border on their own in the month of March alone, further overflowing the already bulging border facilities designed to care for such illegals. This is about 71 percent more children than did so the previous month.
And all who have eyes and ears are blaming President Joe Biden and his administration.
To put it quite simply, Biden’s feds are running out of room to house these kids and yet aren’t making any moves to stop them from coming in.
When Senator Steven Scalise visited the border earlier this month, he reported massive amounts of children being crammed into cages and neglected.
And Texas officials report more of the same from facilities there.
Governor Greg Abbott has even gone so far as to demand the closure of at least one facility in San Antonio where reports continue to mount of both physical and sexual child abuse, as well as other mistreatment of the youth forced there.
Abbott recently tweeted, “Biden opened the borders & failed to plan for the influx of unaccompanied minors. Now he must respond to allegations of child abuse & neglect on his watch. DPS & TX Rangers are investigating. The administration must close the facility & protect these children.”
Since then, it has been reported that the Biden administration is now considering moving some of these children from the border states they currently reside in and placing them in foster or temporary homes throughout the US to unburden facilities at the border.
But not all states are likely to accept such a task so willingly.
Take South Carolina, for instance, who like many states, already has a stressed and overworked social services department for needy children.
Governor Henry McMaster wants to make sure that the atrocities happening in Texas and other border states don’t soon become a problem in his state. And so he’s placing a ban on any incoming unaccompanied children into South Carolina.
According to The Post and Courier of Charleston, the executive order directs the state’s Department of Social Services to “prevent placements of unaccompanied migrant children entering the United States via the southern border into residential group care facilities or other foster care facilities located in, and licensed by, the State of South Carolina.”
At least at first glance, some might call the move callous and cold, considering that these are mere children in need. However, McMaster clarifies that it isn’t a matter of not caring but a matter of putting Americans first.
McMaster cites that due to the COVID-19 pandemic and limited resources available in his state, he cannot, in good conscience, offer to care for and assist migrant children who arrive here illegally when natural-born child citizens of the United States in his state need help too.
In a letter to DSS Director Michael Leach, McMaster wrote, “South Carolina’s children must always be given first priority for placement into foster care and the State’s strained resources must be directed to addressing the needs of its children.”
And in a recent tweet, McMaster said, “The heartbreaking humanitarian crisis on our border was created by the Biden Administration. Sending unaccompanied migrant children from the border to states like South Carolina only makes the problem worse.”
He added, “My Executive Order ensures that South Carolina’s most vulnerable children come first and the vulnerable services and care they receive are not disrupted.”
My guess is that McMaster is not alone in his concern that allowing unaccompanied migrant children into his state will force US children to be further neglected. All across the US, thousands of children find themselves hungry, without a home or someone to care for their basic needs every day. Our priority should be first and foremost to them.
And in the meantime, maybe the president and his staff should figure out some way to manage the flood of migrants showing up here.