MORE MIGRANTS IN OUR SANCTUARY COUNTY

I gave her $20 in cash. She was outside the Safeway in Damascus with a young man and two young children. Her sign in broken English said “please help, new to country, need food.” My Spanish is very poor but from trying to chat I found out she had been in Mexico about two weeks before and came here because she thought life would be better.

Inside the store I spoke to workers and found out that the young man wasn’t her husband, it was her brother. They said she had been out there off and on for several days. Indeed, when I gave her the money, she came right in and bought her kids food – candy and sodas - but I don’t judge. I don’t know what happened to her, it’s been a couple of months.

Today I see more and more migrants coming to our “Sanctuary County.” In Germantown at Milestone Plaza there are now men in the middle of every street corner asking for money. Recently as I drove into the parking lot for the shopping center there was a woman with two young children collecting money. The kids were playing on the grass at the street side. It was cold. As I went into Walmart, before getting to the Salvation Army kettle, women approached me in the parking lot asking for money to feed their kids. Mostly with broken English, not only Spanish, folks of every color and nationality.

From a CNN Report on border crossings in Lukeville, Arizona.

Yes, I believe in legal immigration, but I can’t believe the onslaught we’re facing with an open border. If you stand on the DC border facing Montgomery County at Wisconsin Avenue and look north toward Bethesda you’ll see Friendship Heights, Drummond, Somerset, all of the Chevy Chases - just within one mile it’s a little over 10,000 people. That’s how many people have walked across the border into the U.S. last week in just one day.

We need to get back to legal immigration, it’s not good for the countries sending their folks, it’s not good for us, and it lets both good people and bad people in with no restrictions. It also allows our political parties to exploit people, maybe thinking they’re going to garner votes and support.

So let’s get things under control. Yes, I know you don’t want me to give people money - but folks with children pull at your heart.  Other countries in Africa, South America, Europe and Asia control their borders much better than we do. Let’s get our act together.

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Dennis Melby is the Vice Chair of the Montgomery County Republican Party and can be reached at [email protected]

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