It was announced on Friday, Oct. 21, that Catholic Charities has a new Refugee Resettlement Services building on Avenue B in San Antonio, just blocks from Historic Pearl. It will complement the Migrant Center on San Pedro Avenue, also operated by Catholic Charities. Interestingly, there has been NO public input at City Council regarding both the projects and facilities.
Because Catholic Charities, a nonprofit, owns and operates the facilities, the city’s open records laws do not apply. Citizens cannot obtain information about its funding and operations, even though it is public money.
The two centers serve different categories of "immigrants." The new Refugee Resettlement Services building will help immigrants who are referred by the federal government and who have refugee status. They get assistance with employment services, ESL classes, food, clothing, and other social services. The Migrant Center off San Pedro Avenue serves illegal aliens who crossed the Southern Border with short-term help to travel to other cities.
The American taxpayers are paying for everything through federal grants from the Biden Administration to Catholic Charities. Also, both facilities do not pay taxes because they are nonprofit-owned and operated.
Citizens should ask why they pay for services in the U.S. for aliens (especially illegal ones) when they send billions of dollars in foreign aid to their countries. Isn’t that double-dipping on taxpayers’ pockets?
Furthermore, if Catholic Charities is going to depend on the city’s help in employment training, they should look elsewhere. Five months after the city’s “Ready to Work” program started, the taxpayer-funded job training program has fallen short of its goals of enrolling people. It’s one more example of government waste on a liberal socialist program.
Since both the Migrant Center and the Refugee Center projects impact the local community, San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg and the City Council should have allowed citizen input and comments. But they did not, probably out of fear of popular opposition.
Also, once again, the local news media is silent on the hard questions about both projects. Instead, they promote the liberal narrative portraying the aliens as victims and any opponents as racists.
The borders are open for anyone and everyone to enter, and the citizens and taxpayers are paying for it. Shouldn’t they have a say on who and what gets funded?