In the spring of 2022, the city of Portland, Maine, wrote that its financial budget was in a “dire situation” due to the influx of individuals arriving from the southern border, warning that social services were being strained.
Now, Portland is asking for tax-deductible donations to help provide housing to hundreds, if not thousands, of illegal aliens. Last week, city officials announced that the Portland Expo Center will be turned into overnight housing for these “asylum seekers” who have entered the U.S. beginning on Monday night.
“The intent is to open [the expo] and offer complete and total wrap-around services that are targeted to the population that will be staying here,” Kristen Dow, Portland’s Director of the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement.
The “targeted population” includes many individuals who first enter the country illegally and then declare asylum once on U.S. soil as is technically allowed. They then are given a court hearing date sometime in the distant future to determine whether or not they actually qualify for asylum. After doing that, they often hitch a ride all the way up to Maine, where a litany of free services awaits them.
By Dow’s estimates, 270 individuals will arrive for their first night’s stay on Monday. That is not an all-encompassing number to describe the circumstances in Portland. Since January 1 of 2023 alone, 1,000 individuals from the southern border have arrived in the city which has less than 70,000 year-round residents.
“This is a very dire situation, and the opening of the expo is the last overnight overflow space that we as city staff have available to open and operate,” Interim City Manager Danielle West also told Newscenter Maine last week. “We are truly beyond our capacity to be able to continue to provide compassionate care for those seeking shelter.”
The ExpoCenter will be open from now until August, specifically for illegal aliens who want to reap the rewards.
Portland still can’t afford to pay for this care, so instead, its government is asking for charity.
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“The City will use any monetary donations received to provide shelter/housing assistance and basic human necessities,” a notice from the city says online.
Of course, one can reasonably suspect that as the freebies continue, so will the illegal aliens. Offering food, shelter, and more for free only incentives illegal aliens to travel to the city. New York City is experiencing a similar problem.
Ultimately, Portland — and the rest of the U.S. for that matter — will find itself a non-stop “dire situation” so long as President Joe Biden’s border policies are in place, which are really driving this historic illegal immigration crisis.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.