The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette caught up today on the bubbling controversy about the potential use of a vacant job corps center in Garland County as a temporary holding facility — a detention camp essentially — for refugee children awaiting placement in homes.
Sens. John Boozman and Tom Cotton and U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman have been caterwauling about the threat posed to Arkansas by a handful of children in lockdown — most of them fleeing violence and cruel conditions in Central America.
The story today rehashed it all: The congressmen’s unfounded alarms about dangers posed by the children; a spokesman for Westerman, Ryan Saylor, again misleadingly suggesting this is somehow a front to bring a bunch of Syrians into the country (which, by the way, wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing given the awful situation many people there, including persecuted Christians, face).
But for a quote of the day it’s hard to beat Garland County Judge Rick Davis:
It’s not that we’re not a caring community,” Davis said. “I think if you’re talking about kids, it’s one thing. When you’re talking about teenagers that are probably in their 20s, there’s an uncertainty about security for our community. … It’s just a concern of where they’re coming from.
“Teenagers in their 20s.” And brown ones at that.
Merry Christmas, y’all. Happily they found a cattle shed for some brown Middle Eastern refugees a few thousand years ago in a little Palestinian community. Good thing they didn’t try Arkansas.