Illegal aliens get rooms reserved for vets heading to the Army-Navy game
On December 9, 2023, the 124th Army-Navy game will take place at the Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. Unfortunately, many of the veterans who planned to see the game may find themselves out in the cold because the government of Massachusetts has claimed their hotel rooms for illegal aliens.
The Army-Navy game goes back to 1890 when the cadets at West Point first squared off against the midshipman at the Naval Academy. It is the preeminent game of the service academies. The game continued even during World War II, which must have been wrenching for those viewing the game, as they understood that the players engaged in sporting combat would soon be overseas fighting a real war when losing was a matter of life and death, not just academy prestige.
This coming December, the game will be held for the first time ever in Massachusetts. Fans from across America, many (most?) of whom are veterans, have already bought their tickets and made their reservations. However, some of them are discovering that there’s no room at the inn. And just as there was no room at the inn one December over 2,000 years ago because of government activity, that’s the reason there’s no room this time around, either.
Image: No vacancies by Tim Green. CC BY 2.0.
It turns out that the Massachusetts government has a “right to shelter” law that requires state officials to provide shelter for families in need—and it doesn’t matter whether the person in need is legally in the country.
[In 1983], [Governor Michael] Dukakis signed what became known as the “right-to-shelter” law, which has for 40 years required state officials to quickly provide shelter and other necessities to homeless parents with children, pregnant women, and most recently, a large influx of migrant families arriving in Massachusetts.
While most of the illegal aliens flooding America’s southern border are single, military-aged men, there are large numbers of families coming through, too. And now that governors Abbott and DeSantis are shipping illegal aliens to the smug, Democrat-run states in the north that proudly proclaimed themselves to be “sanctuary” cities, the “right to shelter” law is straining Massachusetts finances while proving to be a boon to hotels.
Think about it: Sure, vets are pouring in for the Army-Navy game, but they’ll stay a few days and then be gone. The hotels will then struggle to fill vacancies.
With illegal aliens, though, hotels go from mostly empty to always full, with the state reliably footing the bill. And if the illegal aliens trash the place (as they are wont to do), that’s not a problem either. The hotels carry insurance, and the insurance companies would be hard-pressed to deny coverage when it’s the government that’s placing people in these hotels. Thus, a slightly fraying hotel suddenly gets the chance to do a remodel, courtesy of its insurance.
These facts may explain why the hotel chains in Foxborough canceled veterans’ reservations and are so enthusiastic about their new guests. (I’m surmising, of course. I have no actual information about whether the hotels have less than honorable intentions.)
First, the cancelations:
Tickets to the game sell out quickly and hotel rooms become a hot commodity.
That's why it was all the more troubling when Mark Mansbach, a travel agent out of New Jersey, started getting calls from clients that their hotel rooms for the game were being canceled. He decided to call the hotels his agency was partnering with for the game.
"They were leasing out the hotels to the state of Massachusetts for refugees," Mansbach said he was told. It was the response from three hotels owned by Giri Hotel Management, according to Mansbach.
The company, he explained, was working with the state to house migrants under the right to shelter law. His clients' previously booked hotel rooms were canceled to continue the lease with the state. Mansbach said at least 70 of his reservations were impacted.
And now the enthusiasm:
The three hotels where he lost rooms to migrants are the Best Western in Sharon/Foxboro, the Best Western in Franklin and the Comfort Inn in Foxboro. They are all run by the same company, Giri Hotel Management.
The management company said in a statement:
“Giri Hotel Management is thrilled to announce our commitment to providing shelter and support to refugees at our hotels. As a gesture of solidarity and humanitarian responsibility, we are opening our doors to those seeking refuge in our community. We consider it a privilege to offer a safe haven to those who have been forced to flee their homes due to challenging circumstances, and our enthusiasm stems from our belief in the fundamental values of compassion and unity. By providing shelter to refugees, we aim to be a part of a global community that stands together in support of those in need. We look forward to working with local authorities and organizations to ensure a smooth transition for all those who will call our hotels home during their time with us.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis, a vet, was quick to call out the leftist state’s solicitude for illegal aliens over America’s veterans:
There’s really nothing more to say, is there?
Trade Ukraine for the border
Kevin McCarthy was always accused of being a "deal-maker," and that was somehow part of his downfall. So, too, Donald Trump was hailed for the "Art of the Deal." Neither man, though, as I see it, really was much of a negotiator on national legislation or much else — largely because they had little to offer the other side.
Right now, as weak as the Republicans in Congress are, they have the potential to make a great deal for themselves. They have something Biden and the Democrats are desperate to have (as are Mitch McConnell and the Zelensky Republicans) and which, at the same time, should be no major problem to conservatives.
That is aid to Ukraine. For some reason the liberal Dems, after decades of being squishy-soft on the old Soviet Union, and then Obama's outright appeasement of Putin's Russia, have decided we need to fight it out to the last Ukrainian trans spokeswoman.
As I noted earlier this year, Ukraine, after wrecking much of the Russian army and its modern equipment, was going to exhaust its own resources, and we would be at some kind of stalemate by autumn. A lot of Ukrainians still want another year of support to regroup and wear down the Russians to the point they might still collapse. Possible, but not likely.
Still, they are doing a great service for the world as a whole. The Russian military is so weak now that it will be decades, if ever, before the Russians can again bother the NATO countries, or embark on other misadventures. They are so hard up for equipment that they are even stripping the defenses on the sensitive Kuril Islands off Japan.
The usual folks on our side are unalterably opposed to helping Ukraine, for peculiar reasons — Tucker Carlson, Doug Bandow, etc. But for most conservatives, another year of supporting Ukraine's military seems like hardly the worst thing our tax money supports.
Rather, we should exult in our good fortune. Democrats have adopted the Ukraine War as closely to their hearts as Drag Queen Story Hours. They care about nothing else these days. They want it so badly now, so let's trade for the thing we really want: fixing the southern border.
This would include restoration of Remain in Mexico for asylum-seekers and strict limits on the number of immigrant paroles and Temporary Protected Status waivers. Things are so bad that Biden is doing a bizarre flip-flop on building more sections of the border wall. So Democrats are finally starting to crack on this issue, anyway.
Let's hope the next speaker will take yes for an answer, and we can make a deal to finally close off the millions of illegals flooding our country. That would be a real Art of the Deal.
Frank Friday is an attorney in Louisville, Ky.
Image via Pxhere.
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