In New York City, unvaccinated people can’t eat at restaurants. Mask mandates are coming back in many parts of the country. This is all being encouraged, explicitly or implicitly, by our president.
And yet, in McAllen, Texas — the Rio Grande Valley city at the center of the border crisis — officials have been forced to build an isolation camp for COVID-positive illegal aliens because President Joe Biden’s administration refuses to do anything to slow the spread of illegal migration and continues to release infected individuals into the community.
Mayor Javier Villalobos — a Hispanic Republican — has had enough. He told Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” on Friday that the isolation camp is necessary to protect the city because of the COVID-19 infection rate among the illegals.
“We had to make an emergency decision to put up tents,” Villalobos said.
He said Catholic Charities — which has been assisting the city in housing illegal immigrants whom the Border Patrol has been busing into the city and releasing after they’ve been processed — “couldn’t handle it anymore.”
“We shouldn’t and we cannot let all the immigrants roam around our city, especially with the high COVID rate,” Villalobos said.
“It used to be 4, 5, 6 percent. It’s over, in excess of, 16 percent positive. We have to protect our citizens.”
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Last week, the city constructed the tent compound overnight. While it was initially built within McAllen city limits, it was moved to property near Customs and Border Protection operations in Hidalgo County.
UPDATE: According to a city of McAllen press release, this tent compound is to house illegal immigrants released from federal custody who have tested positive for COVID-19. https://t.co/nj1nffPVo9
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) August 5, 2021
City of McAllen approves temporary emergency shelter to move location pic.twitter.com/KGZfhJui0m
— City of McAllen, TX (@CityofMcAllen) August 5, 2021
McAllen has become an object lesson of the brokenness of President Joe Biden’s immigration policies, in part, because it’s the operational headquarters of the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley Sector, the epicenter of the current border crisis.
In a news release published by the Rio Grande Guardian, an online newspaper covering the Rio Grande Valley, the city said the Humanitarian Respite Center run by Catholic Charities, which normally keeps overflow illegal immigrants off the streets when the Border Patrol buses them into the city, has been overwhelmed by the current crisis.
“At the beginning of July, the Respite Center saw an average of 750 people per day. That number, over the course of the month, escalated to over 1,100 people per day, and so far in August has surged to over 1,900 people per day. The Respite Center has capacity for only 1,236 occupants and will not allow more than its maximum occupancy at any given time,” the release read.
It isn’t just the number of illegal immigrants, either. The Respite Center is supposed to function as temporary shelter before transportation can be arranged for the illegal immigrants, who are transported into the interior by bus or plane and given a notice to appear in court. Most people would move through the center in a day, McAllen officials said in the news release.
However, in late July, media reports indicated that tickets on buses were so scarce that illegal immigrants were waiting at least two days to get a seat.
Our team says they’ve seen at least 4 bus loads of migrants being dropped off today. NYP reports that buses at McAllen station can’t keep up with demand because there are so many migrants coming in, and locals have to wait 2 days to get a bus ticket. https://t.co/NZlHjUfZhI
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) July 24, 2021
In his appearance on Fox News, Villalobos pointed out that this was something the Biden administration could take care of easily — if, of course, it wanted to.
“You know with the stroke of a pen this can be taken care of,” Villalobos said. “Seven, eight, nine months ago it was totally different, it was under control. I wish things could go back to the way they were.”
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They’re not going to. Villalobos noted that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was “coming this Monday and hopefully we can sit down and talk to him and figure out something.”
To the White House, though, this is figured out. A few tweaks here and there and, well, this looks fine to the Biden-Harris administration — no matter what the COVID positivity rate is.
Meanwhile, the president and the administration are flagellating any politician not toeing their line on tougher coronavirus restrictions. If you want to see how serious they are about this, however, just look to McAllen, Texas.
Border security isn’t about racism, as the Hispanic Mayor Villalobos can attest. Especially at this moment, it’s about keeping Americans safe. If you can’t keep the border secure, you shouldn’t be able to call yourself president.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.