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| Mayor Florsheim |
The crisis at the border has now officially become “a border crisis.” A story in Hartford paper boldly labels it as such: “Lamont was personally asked by Vice President Kamala Harris recently if Connecticut could provide space for some of the thousands of children who are being kept in detention centers along the Texas border after fleeing from their Central American countries. Their numbers have increased as the federal government is facing a border crisis (emphasis mine).”
“Crisis” is not a term often found waltzing around with the
new administration of President Joe Biden. But it has become impossible in
recent days for Friends Of Biden (FOBs) to overlook the massive numbers of illegal
– shall we, for once, call things by their right names? -- immigrants that have poured over the US
border after Biden, a few weeks into his presidency, opened the door to illegal
immigration while telling the huddled masses yearning to breathe free in
Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico, “Don’t come in just yet. We’re not ready for
you.”
They came, in numbers impossible to ignore.
Biden honeymooners scattered throughout the United States
have managed thus far to obscure the predictable consequences of Democrat
attempts to rid the nation of any trace of Trumpism. Slathering such failed
attempts with political slant-ointment has not worked to obliterate the failed
results of Biden’s thoughtless border policies. Orwell taught us that the most
difficult thing writers must do is to notice what is lying right under their
noses, and some people in the news business have taken his admonition to heart.
The unmanageable influx of illegal immigrants quickly became
a crisis after the Biden administration disassembled Trump’s effective, though
imperfect, multiple solutions to illegal border crossings. The Trump protocols
included a wall, much derided by anti-Trump Democrats, an arrangement with
south-of-the-border states that illegal immigrants passing through other countries
on their way to the United States must apply for asylum in the pass-through countries,
and tighter border security. All this was washed away, mostly by executive
fiats, following Biden’s elevation to the presidency.
The came the deluge. Suddenly everyone was woke.
Now that the immigration horses have escaped the barn, the
Biden administration is reconsidering patching breaches in the border wall and
bribing – shall we call things by their right names for once? -- South American
countries plagued for decades by failed socialist policies, so that the
governments of said countries might consider giving the Biden administration a
hands-up concerning illegal border crossings.
Answering a plea from Vice President Kamala Harris,
Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont has agreed to lend a hand as well. After all,
why should a border crisis that affects the entire nation be borne solely by California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas,
states lying on our country’s mystical borders?
Good question. Is it not a form of cheap grace for
progressives in Connecticut to refuse to put their muscle where their mouths
have been? This time, Connecticut progressives are not marching in lockstep
with their brother progressives in the Biden-Harris administration.
Connecticut progressives are wiggling on the point. Middletown Mayor Ben Florsheim, perhaps the
most progressive politician in the history of Middletown, expressed reservations.
“Taking kids out of cages in the Southwest and moving them into cages in the
Northeast, Florsheim said, “is not an immigration policy. This is a literal
decommissioned child prison. It’s a detention facility.” Actually, was a detention facility; no one has
been detained in the closed Connecticut
Juvenile Training School since April 12, 2018. Then too, Harris was
not whispering policy prescriptions into Lamont’s ear during her visit to
Connecticut. She was begging Lamont to let down a much needed political life
line and, really, doesn’t the temporary housing in Connecticut of distressed
children merit a soupcon of compassion from the progressive Mayor of
Middletown? We are, after all, a nation of immigrants.
Connecticut Justice Alliance’s executive director Christina
Quaranta said that the former juvenile detention center “was not built to care
for, support, or heal youth — especially youth already going through such
significant trauma. Even if all evidence that [the training school] is a
maximum security, hardware secure facility is removed, it still remains a
large, cinderblock building, with inadequate living space for young people.”
Nope, Lamont said, “I visited there last week. I had no idea
what to expect: cafeterias, classrooms, big outdoor recreation, indoor rec
areas. I think the federal government would come in and make sure that when it
came to where people actually sleep, they can do that in a way that the kids
feel safe and feel like they’re at home. It’s secure, but it’s also welcoming.”
And that is the point, isn’t it? Lamont and Harris are right
on this one: Connecticut should share the burden of national problems – the sooner
the better. Welcoming illegal immigrant children to a facility that easily can
be adjusted to meet their needs is no different than welcoming illegal
immigrants into Connecticut’s sanctuary cities, and progressives who lodge flimsy
objections to this mission of mercy are practitioners of cheap grace.
The crisis elsewhere should come home to roost, if only to
show that Connecticut is better than those who pray in the church of cheap grace.
Jesus, incidentally, called the practitioners of cheap grace “the tombs of the
prophets.”
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