While we understand that there are many nuances in the ongoing illegal immigrant debate, and there are certainly two sides to every story, we can’t help but wonder if the US government granting a $50 million award to BCFS Health and Human Services to house “young illegal immigrants at the site of the current Palm Aire Hotel and Suites” in Weslaco, Texas is the best use of government funding. As KRGV reported, ” A center for unaccompanied minors set to open in Weslaco later this year will be the first of its kind in the nation, officials with a network of non-profits said. A center for unaccompanied minors set to open in Weslaco later this year will be the first of its kind in the nation, officials with a network of non-profits said… Representatives with BCFS said the Palm Aire will undergo a multi-million dollar transformation.”
Perhaps the reason why the public’s attention has not only been picqued by this news, but has led to a broad wave of outrage, is that a cursory scan of the Hotel complex reveals accomodations which are inaccessible to millions of Americans, let alone “unaccompanied minor immigrants.”
BCFS has a prepared reason why it needs the funding:
ÂÂBCFS runs a temporary detention center for young illegal immigrants at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. BCFS began as an orphanage for Hispanic children in San Antonio in 1944
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“Children … who weren’t able to go into other orphanages. They weren’t allowed at the white orphanages, they weren’t allowed at the African-American orphanages,” said Krista Piferrer, with BCFS external affairs
Perhaps it is true that the BCFS was overdue an expansion, but that does not explain the need for tens of millions for its purported relocation into what is effectively a resort that has tennis courts, swimming pools, and saunas? Because a quick glimpse at the website of the Palm Aire Hotel indeed reveals accomodation conditions that many Americans – the kind that actually pay taxes – would be delighted to spend the rest of their lives in:
