What is so galling about the continued transport of migrant children through Chattanooga is not the private firms allowing their facilities to be used and not the nonprofit organizations fulfilling their missions to help protect minor children but that the children’s continued illegal flow into the country is not only allowed but sanctioned by the president of the United States.
The fact that it has been done under cover of darkness (the most recent instance a flight into Wilson Air Center at the Chattanooga Municipal Airport late last Saturday, according to WRCB-TV)), with tarps shielding movement at a local facility last month, with no notice to state officials, is tacit acknowledgement that what is occurring is wrong, against the law.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, U.S. Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty, and U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann all have made the Biden administration aware of their dismay at the flagrant flouting of the law. But they can only get in line.
Children have been brought to Nashville, Knoxville and Atlanta, as well as Chattanooga, a source close to the situation, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Nashville’s FOX 17 News this week. The source indicated chains of buses from those cities often transport them to larger cities such as New York, Chicago or Miami.
“There are drop-offs in small towns and big cities all along the routes,” the source said. “I don’t know if they’re going into other processing centers. In some cases, family members are waiting to find these children … But my understanding in a number of these cases, these kids are fresh across the border … They have intentionally not shared a lot of information with us. They don’t want this to get out.”