The Star Tribune has just posted Maya Rao’s weepy and euphemistic take on Hennepin County’s close encounter of the Biden kind with the flood of illegal immigrants that is washing up in Minneapolis from New York (thanks, Mayor Adams!) and south of the border.
After a month in New York’s overcrowded homeless shelters, two Ecuadorian migrants and their baby recently received a free plane ticket to Minneapolis.
They took a cab to a Bloomington hotel that Hennepin County leases as an overflow family shelter, where many newly arrived Ecuadorians stay. But the couple found a sign in Spanish on the door: “We are not accepting new families at this time.”
The 18-year-olds sat on the curb that afternoon as their baby slept on a suitcase, waiting for a room to open in the full hotel.
It isn’t rude to observes that someone paid for that “free plane ticket,” but inquiry into who that someone might be runs beyond the scope of Rao’s 1500-word story. Rao doesn’t go there.
Maybe this inhibited the scope of Rao’s inquiry, but I don’t think so: “The Star Tribune could not determine what happened to the family waiting outside the Bloomington hotel — after a few minutes of conversation, two security officers walked outside and asked journalists to leave.”
What agency did the security officers work for? Rao doesn’t go there.
Rao only glancingly addresses the illegality of the flood. She notes that most of the “migrants” are Ecuadorians “seeking asylum, waiting for court dates that are months or years away.” In the meantime, the joke’s on us: “Minnesota’s immigration court has 7,779 Ecuadorians with pending cases, up from 344 in 2018.”
How would these 18-year-olds or other Ecuadorians in the Biden flood washing up in Hennepin County conceivably qualify for asylum? Rao doesn’t go there.
I love Rao’s indulgent take on the secondary effects of the Ecuadorian flood on American citizens unsuccessfully in search of shelter: “While U.S. citizens are also turned away, they are more likely to have other alternatives such as family and friends who can temporarily offer a couch.”
As I read Rao’s story, I take it that Rao was told that by “[a] professional who works with the homeless in Hennepin County and requested anonymity for fear of losing their [sic] job[.]” Why might the professional have lost “their” job? Rao doesn’t go there.
The Star Tribune story does not provide for comments. I wonder why.
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