Hundreds of cities fight back against 'invasion'

Protesters in Vasser, Michigan, marched from city hall Monday, July 14.

A massive protest scheduled for July 18 and 19 across the United States is aimed at stopping the influx of Central American children flooding across the border, and more than a dozen smaller community protests already have played roles in stopping the children from being brought there.

Citizens in Westminster, Maryland; Oracle, Arizona; Vassar, Michigan; Greece, New York, and many other places have blocked the importation of illegal aliens into their communities through public protests, letters and official resolutions from elected leaders.

See full list below.

Radio host Rush Limbaugh led his show Tuesday with stories about the successful pushback against the illegals going on across America.

“Here’s what you do not know,” he said.  “There are towns all over America standing up to this invasion, just like they did in Murrieta, California.  You’re not hearing about it, however, and I am here to tell you why you’re not hearing about it.  Westminster, Maryland, is a town standing up to it, just like Murrieta, California, did. Oracle, Arizona, is standing up to it.

“In Nebraska they’re gonna stand up to it when they find out. The governor is fit to be tied,” Limbaugh continued.  “Upper Michigan, same thing. There are towns all over America standing up to this.  There are protests happening, but they’re not being covered.”

But the mother of all protests promises to be Friday and Saturday. It’s dubbed the National Day of Protesting Against Immigration Reform, Amnesty & Border Surge, and it’s gaining support by the hour, said William Gheen, president of the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC and one of 11 sponsors. The main organizers are Gheen’s ALIPAC, James Neighbors of Overpasses For America and Paul Arnold of a new group called Make Them Listen.

“Right now it’s looking like we’ll have a little more than 300 protest rallies large and small across the country. Our goal is to unify Americans of all races, political parties and walks of life against the Obama-inspired illegal immigrant invasion,” Gheen said. “At last count we had 257 communities signed up, but that was two hours ago. We’re expecting more than 300 and updating the event list every two hours.”

The protests will take place in state capitals, Mexican consulates, on highway overpasses and intersections, and at illegal immigrant drop-off points and detention centers. Look here for a state by state listing of protest locations.

Will protests of illegals by U.S. cities make a difference? Sound off in the WND Poll.

Gheen said he’s hoping to send a message to “amnesty” politicians in both parties. He wants to counteract the recent surge of illegals at the southern border with a “surge” of his own.

“We’re hoping to get an American surge that will manifest in protests and the defeat of more Eric Cantor-type Republicans that still have GOP primaries and the Democrats in November that support Obama and his amnesty plans,” Gheen told WND.

He said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., is tops on the list of Republicans he’d like to see booted from Washington. Alexander faces a challenge in the Aug. 7 primary from small businessman and state legislator Joe Carr, who has the backing of the tea party. He said 40 Republicans in the House also “need to go” because they are pro-amnesty politicians “playing the role” of conservatives.

“That’s why we’re involved in this historic protest, to help turn the tide in this,” he said. “That’s what they fear the most. They don’t fear people standing on an overpass swinging a flag. What they fear is when they know the next stop is the election booth and that’s our message. We want everybody to support these protests but we want them to understand we need to get them involved in these elections and the defeat of many of Obama’s amnesty allies.”

Gheen, who said he has worked as a consultant on 40 political campaigns, predicts this November will go down in history as a monumental house-cleaning in Congress.

“I am predicting that it is now possible to sweep more Democrats out of office than was done in the historic revolutions of 1994 and 2010,” he said. “We have to elect so many grassroots and populist conservatives that we can get the amnesty supporters out of office, and that includes John Boehner. Obama is doing this because he does not fear John Boehner. Republicans like Boehner and Rick Perry are not really Obama’s opponent. They just play those roles on television. They’re like people who can’t act well enough for Hollywood but they play characters on television for political purposes.”

Gheen said the coalition includes groups from varied backgrounds, including 2 Million Bikers to D.C., America Working, Americans Have Had Enough Coalition, Remember 1986, Tea Party Community and Riders USA. See the full list here.

James Neighbors, an Oklahoma City-based activist and founder of Overpasses for America, said his group will serve as the main logistics organizer on the ground in the various cities, checking on local protest laws and other details. He said it hasn’t been hard to get people excited about coming out to protest illegal immigration.

“Really we just give them the facts, and in this case it happens to be amnesty and how it’s going to cost over $60 billion to intake all of these illegal aliens and that’s only the 11 million the government admits are here. That number is from 2004,” said Neighbors. “We’re being invaded. That’s why we’re taking a strong stance on this because we’re looking and seeing more than one out of every 10 in the whole country being here illegally. That’s not even including what’s pouring across the border last several months. With the magnitude of what’s happening to America it might also be treasonous, because we believe it’s intentional.”

Neighbors said his group has demonstrated on overpasses in favor of impeachment, against Obamacare and for an investigation into the terrorist attack on the U.S. special mission in Benghazi, Libya. He thinks this weekend’s amnesty protest will be the largest of them all.

“I think it will be bigger. It’s a collaboration of several different groups and we’ve been able to get the word spread out so well on this,” he said. “People are so angry on this, it’s more tangible than impeachment. People can look around and see the results of what our open borders plan has been. I’m glad we’ll be able to provide an outlet for their anger.”

He said this weekend’s protests will be strictly peaceful.

“We don’t engage in violence, we simply exercise our First Amendment rights and educate the public with our protests,” he said. “We really look at it as a bypassing of the media. The ratings of the mainstream media are at an all-time low but you can’t ignore people out on an overpass; it sticks in your mind.”
What already has happened is clear.

Communities just say no to transplanted illegals

In Vassar, Michigan, about 50 protesters marched from City Hall through town on July 14 to the doorstep of a contractor that agreed to house up to 120 teenage boys from Central America. Some carried AR-15 rifles and handguns and tea party flags, according to a local newspaper report.

It was the second time in two weeks the protesters gathered. The protests are organized by Michiganders for Immigration Control, reported Fox 17 Detroit.

“We must act,” said Tamyra Murray, a resident of Blumfield Township near Saginaw, who organized the protests. “We must save America and stand up against this invasion.”

The Pioneer Work and Learn Center is under consideration to house up to 120 of the children, who are part of the massive influx of undocumented immigrants who have crossed the U.S.-Mexico border since the fall. The minors, ages 12-17, would remain at the facility up to four weeks while their cases move through the immigration system.

In Oracle, Arizona, a small town near Tuscon, protesters on both sides of the immigration debate showed up Tuesday after the sheriff said the federal government plans to transport about 40 immigrant children to an academy for troubled youths.

One group waved American flags, held signs that read “Return to Sender” and “Go home non-Yankees” and said it would block a bus that was supposed to arrive with immigrant children aboard. A few miles up the road, about 50 pro-immigrant supporters held welcome signs with drawings of hearts. The dueling groups each had about 50 people, according to the Associated Press.

“We are not going to tolerate illegals forced upon us,” protester Loren Woods told the AP.

Prince William County, Virginia, is preparing to sue ICE to get immigration data on 7,500 criminal illegal aliens turned over to the feds since 2008.

Prince William County Board of Supervisors will meet and is expected to give the green light to a lawsuit demanding immigration data from the federal government if the data is not turned over soon in response to a Freedom of Information request.

Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, told Fox 5 in Washington, D.C., he has a simple question for ICE: “What have you done with the 7,500 criminal illegal aliens that we have handed over to you since 2008?”

Stewart is the architect of the county’s policy, which has police check the immigration status of people arrested for crimes.

“Our policy has always been about catching criminal illegal aliens,” said Stewart. “Not about the illegal immigrant here trying to make a living.”

Once they serve their terms, they are turned over to ICE. And that is where the trouble starts.
“Were they released back into the United States or were they deported?” Stewart wondered.
Since it instituted its stepped-up enforcement, Prince William County police have arrested and turned over to ICE more than 7,000 people who are in the United States illegally. The problem is the county says ICE now won’t tell them where those people are.

In Chicago’s south suburbs in late June, a planned transfer of illegal alien children to a former monastery was stopped when a congressman intervened with letters to the Obama administration.

Rep. Randy Hultgren, R-Ill., called for those efforts to be stopped, arguing that moving the children to the facility would only make matters worse for the children while creating orphanages even farther away from their homes.

“These children, unaccompanied by their families and under the control of smugglers and trafficking organizations, don’t need a stopgap solution,” he told NBC 5 in Chicago. “They should be returned to their home countries quickly and with human dignity, not left to languish in legal limbo.”

Congressional candidate Eric Wallace, who lives near the proposed site, also expressed concern about how the children would be absorbed into the community.

In Bristol, Virginia, the Washington County Board of Supervisors adopted a resolution July 8 banning any resettlement of illegal aliens in the city, which apparently shot down a plan by the feds to house a group of Central American children at a vacant college campus, reported the Bristol Herald Courier.

Board members voted unanimously to send a resolution to local and federal legislators, as well as federal agencies, saying they oppose housing illegal aliens in the county, unless they’ve been charged as criminals and are treated accordingly.

The resolution that was approved was drafted by board member Jim Baker, who rewrote a resolution that County Administrator Jason Berry had drafted and put into the draft meeting agenda.

The topic of housing immigrants or refugees came up at the last board meeting, after it was made known that federal authorities were apparently considering the vacated Virginia Intermont College in Bristol as a site to house children who have fled Central America. Residents in Lawrenceville, Virginia, protested the housing of about 500 immigrant children at Saint Paul’s College, which closed a few years ago.

Baker’s resolution is more general, opposing the housing of all illegal aliens in the county, regardless of their age or situation.

“We don’t wish to be a target for illegal immigrants, and support other localities and local officials trying to fight it,” Baker told the Herald Courier.

In Greece, New York, a vacant 90,000-square-foot warehouse was under consideration by the federal government as temporary housing for illegal child immigrants but local elected leaders put a stop to the plan.
“It is my understanding from talking to the developer that he and the federal government would not move forward with this if the community did not support it, and we do not,” City Supervisor Bill Reilich said during a news conference at Greece Town Hall.

In Brockport, New York, near Rochester, the feds were eyeing a vacant Walmart as housing for illegal alien children from Central America. Rep. Chris Collins, R-New York, came out against the plan, which is now being reconsidered.

“As I have said before, it is unacceptable the federal government is trying to force the hardworking taxpayers of New York to foot the bill to house undocumented immigrants,” said Collins in a statement.
According to Collins, HHS is considering at least two other facilities in the state — a former convent in Saratoga County and a business park in Nassau County.

The federal agency was embarrassed earlier last month when it sent agents to inspect a facility near Buffalo it was considering for housing UACs. When the agents showed up to inspect the facility, they were informed that it was a fully functional resort and spa.

In Hazleton, Pennsylvania, a vacant building in the downtown business district was being considered as temporary shelter for unaccompanied teens flooding over the Mexican-U.S. border.

Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Pennsylvania, called a press conference and vehemently criticized the plan, citing the possibilities of diseases being brought into the community and possible criminal or terrorist elements.

“We’re not talking about housing unaccompanied children at some military installation in Texas,” Barletta
said. “There are people looking into housing them right here in our communities, and in towns just like this one, possibly all over America.”

In Bethpage, New York, a former Grumman manufacturing plant had been under consideration to house “thousands” of unaccompanied illegal alien children from the border surge but was ruled out after opponents said the former EPA Superfund site would not be an appropriate place for children to live. Superfund sites are environmentally contaminated industrial sites. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not give a reason as to why it ruled out the Bethpage facility.

In Westminster, Maryland, the feds decided not to use a former Army Reserve base as housing for illegal alien children after local officials objected to the transfer of illegals into their community.

A spokesman for Rep. Andy Harris, R-Maryland, told WBAL Radio that the congressman was notified that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services decided not to use the Westminster facility.

Harris, who represents part of Carroll County, joined some county officials in opposing the move. In a statement, Harris said flying the children to Maryland made no sense.

In Baltimore, Maryland, opposition from both of the state’s U.S. senators and from local officials blocked the proposed illegal alien housing facility at a vacant Social Security Administration Building in the city’s downtown area.

Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski and Ben Cardin had publicly objected to the proposal, as did Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.

“The site they had intended is not being considered at this time,” Caron Brace, a spokeswoman for the mayor, told the Baltimore Sun. “However, the urgent need remains.”

In Escondido, California, the city planning commission rejected a proposal to turn an old nursing home into a shelter to house undocumented children.

Nearly 500 people packed into City Hall June 24 to show their concern and 100 of them signed up to speak. Police were there in case the crowd got too “rowdy,” according to ABC 10.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services wanted to open a 96-bed facility on Avenida Del Diablo, which is the site of a nursing home once operated by Palomar Pomerado Health Services.
Escondido’s mayor, anti-immigration activists and people who live near the site all opposed it. Ly Lykou came to this country 30 years ago from Asia.

“We did it the right way. We waited in line. We had our lungs X-rayed. If they want to do it the right way, let’s do that, but I feel like this is being forced on us. This is not a temporary situation,” Lykou said.