California Democrats are reacting angrily to plans by the Trump administration to house tens of thousands of illegal aliens detained at the southern border at military bases in the Golden State.
Plans that leaked late last week call for 47,000 illegal aliens to be housed at a closed U.S. Navy base in Concord in the San Francisco Bay Area, and for about 25,000 to be housed at the U.S. Marine Corps base at Camp Pendleton in Southern California.
The apparent intention is to keep illegal aliens detained rather than allowing them to disappear into the general U.S. population, as was the previous practice under the “catch-and-release” approach. Though illegal aliens who were released often received court dates, many simply declined to appear.
San Diego’s ABC News 10 reports that it is “not clear if the Navy anticipates a request for housing for families or solely for children. The memo calls for housing to begin in July and last until the end of the year.”
Hundreds of opponents of the Trump administration’s alleged policy of “family separation” protested at the border in San Diego on Saturday, and thousands protested outside the local headquarters of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) — though President Donald Trump had already signed an executive order providing that illegal alien families would be detained together.
The protests could be even worse in Northern California, where opposition to President Trump’s policy is stronger. A furious Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA) called the plan to house illegal aliens at the naval base, which is in his district, “madness”:
The @eastbaytimes reported on the unprecedented & thoughtless Trump Administration proposal to construct a detention facility to hold up to 47,000 immigrants at the Naval Weapons Station in Concord. It is madness & we are fighting this in every way we can. https://t.co/jx57ZrNtBn
— Mark DeSaulnier (@RepDeSaulnier) June 23, 2018
Others agreed, and appealed to the state’s Democratic members of Congress:
Sen. Harris, please look into the report on the Navy opening the Concord Naval Weapon Station in California for use as a detention center for up to 47,000 immigrants and do what you can to shut this plan down! Concord will not be a party to this! #TrumpConcentrationCampsForKids
— J. Trevizo (@jtrevizo1013) June 22, 2018
The local mayor told the Bay Area News Group that at first he thought the plans were “fake news.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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