Wednesday Border Town Open Comments

From HotAir.com :

The statement that “every town is a border town” is hitting home in Jamestown, NY, with a population of about 28,000.  It seems word got out that Jamestown was a good place to go, so the buses took them there.

Residents of the very small village recently learned that as many as 35 illegal migrants, almost all of them from Colombia, have settled in their town and many more are expected to arrive soon. (NY Post)

In this small town — about as far as one can get from the southern border without entering Canada — residents are bracing for an influx of migrants that could cause a crisis similar to the one that has New York City facing a fiscal cliff.

“If a city of 8 million people can be overwhelmed by a couple thousand migrants, imagine what a couple hundred can do to overwhelm a small rural community upstate?” warned state Sen. Joe Borrello (R-Jamestown).

“It wouldn’t take many migrants to overwhelm the system,” he added.

For the irritating, liberal, holier-than-thou cities like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, who put out the “sanctuary city” shingle, I’d say “cry me a river”.  But this sounds like a nice little town that hasn’t bothered anybody. They are not prepared for this.  But then, neither is Eagle Pass nor El Paso.

I’ve been to or traveled through Jamestown many times over the years because it sits on the primary interstate leading to Ohio. It’s one of those “don’t blink or you’ll miss it” communities that dot the upstate region. Like virtually any community in the country, they had their own homelessness problem before the border crisis began. (Their names are Phil, Mark, and Judy.) 

The residents of this community are trying to help, but they don’t have the resources to handle the tidal wave of humanity headed their way, nor the megaphone that their behemoth city brother has in order to call for help.  And, as the article author points out, they get real winter there.  Like, 17 degrees recently.  It’s hard to survive that in an outside tent.

How did Jamestown become the destination of choice for so many Colombian migrants when it barely shows up on a map? According to some of the migrants who spoke to reporters through a translator, it was something like an old-fashioned game of telephone. One small family of migrants had a relative living in Jamestown who offered to let them stay with her. Down in the migrant camps along the border, the news of one family having a couple of extra rooms quickly made its way through the grapevine, rapidly morphing into ‘Jamestown is the place to go for resettlement.’

/snip

The locals are concerned about what will happen in the near future. People have already begun selling fake Social Security cards and licenses to some of them. Those who are unable to find legal jobs have already turned up selling drugs. As with all communities with large numbers of homeless people and illegal migrants, crime rates always go up as the overcrowding continues. Jamestown has a grand total of 60 police officers and less than a dozen patrol cars. What are they supposed to do when an actual crime wave arrives in their sleepy village?

These people are being beseiged by Bidenomics, the economics of policy.  Wiss poor policy.  These Jamestownians will get no help nor sympathy from The Powers That Be.

I am sure that Jamestown is one of many smaller communities finding themselves at the mercy of the onslaught.  I can only hope that just as the illegals requested busing based on what they heard, that votes will be changed as relatives call friends and family in other locales to describe what is happening to their town.

The loss of their culture, their fiscal stability, and their safety.