The unaccompanied, immigrant minors from Honduras and Venezuela who landed at a federal intake center in Midland last week have begun their journey of being resettled elsewhere in the United States, according to Midland’s mayor, but exactly where the teenagers are traveling remains a mystery.
“They have shipped 100 migrant teenage boys out of the location, to the airport, put them on planes and distributed them to who knows where around the country,” said Mayor Patrick Payton. “They are under the handling of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, and we’re told they have an 11% COVID positivity rate.”
As previously reported, 435 unaccompanied migrant teens who crossed into the U.S. from Mexico landed at a vacant man camp in Midland on March 14 with the help of Red Cross workers, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) authorities.
Midland Mayor Patrick Payton said Midlanders should pray for migrant juveniles and staff at the migrant facility that the federal government established near Midland.
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“The overall tragedy is the Biden administration is complicit in shuttling abused teenagers from the border to the state, to the country and local law enforcement knows that the vast majority of these boys are being trafficked," Payton told the Midland Times. "The administration is doing the job of the cartels and the drug runners by facilitating their resettlement.”
The Midland camp is owned by Cotton Industries, according to media reports, and Payton said he was told the property had been leased by the federal government for 90 days with an option to renew.
"The only thing that's changed since last week is the location has become more fortified," he said. "There's now a 10-foot fence around it and they have built a massive, recreational facility for the migrant teen boys. They allowed us to fill out forms if we would like to go take a tour but it has to be a guided tour."
The Lone Star Standard reported this week that President Biden's policy of stopping the immediate deportation of unaccompanied minors crossing the border allows unaccompanied minors to remain and apply for asylum. However, families and adults are being immediately deported under the existing pandemic-related health order Title 42.
“The long-term ramification is an expansion of the influence of the cartels north of the border and eventually this population will realize they're being completely duped, used and manipulated by the Biden administration for political purposes,” Payton said. “The administration has created this crisis intentionally so they can produce people who are dependent and will vote for them in perpetuity.”
Last week, state Sen. Kel Seliger (R-Amarillo) sent a letter requesting that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton file a temporary restraining order to stop the influx but Payton said nothing has happened.
“I'm supposed to have a conversation with Attorney General Ken Paxton the first of next week,” he said. “We’re continuing to pursue any legal action we can but so far the hands of the state are about as tied as our hands at the local level. Midland and Odessa residents want to help in any way they can, but they are being turned away and they are just furious that the federal government can just plop down in your community, take over a site and do whatever they want to do."
Payton said he fears U.S. citizenship will be forever devalued as a result of the sudden influx.
“The purpose of immigration is so you can become a producing member of society and value citizenship in this great country and now the federal government is saying, 'There's no such thing as valid citizenship. It's just come one, come all and we'll give you what you need,'" Payton said. “Citizenship is being given to them for free but it's costing the rest of American citizens all their money to pay for free citizenship.”