Mayor Durkan would rather talk about the border than Seattle’s homeless children
Apr 16, 2019, 1:18 PM
(Seattle Channel)
President Trump recently proposed the idea of sending immigrants from the southern border to the country’s ‘sanctuary cities.’ It is a move to call the bluff of political officials in these cities – to see if they will actually back up their virtue signals, and welcome immigrants into their communities.
Some mayors have responded already, like Mayor Jim Kenney of Philadelphia:
We welcome immigrants in Philadelphia with open arms. Our diversity makes Philadelphia a great city and our immigration policies encourage that diversity of thought and spirit. While the Trump Administration’s proposal shows their disdain to basic human dignity, the city would be prepared to welcome these immigrants just as we have embraced our immigrant communities for decades.
Mayor Kenney has stuck to his guns on his position about Immigration. As has Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel:
What President Trump fails to understand is that America is a sanctuary country. Chicago will always be a welcoming city; immigrants of all faiths, nationalities and ethnicities help make Chicago the most American of American cities.
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan is a master of the virtue signal. Surely she would be welcoming to the immigrants too! But here’s her first of many statements:
It is against our values to use people – including children and families in crisis – as political pawns. Seattle will continue to fight for the dignity of every person and will not allow any administration to use the power of America to destroy the promise of America.
Mayor Durkan took a decidedly different route. Instead of saying she would welcome the immigrants to Seattle, she decided to attack President Trump’s use of children as “pawns.” This struck me as hypocritical, because I can distinctly recall Mayor Durkan using the same children as pawns as well.
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About a year ago there was a noticeable rise in violence in Seattle that hasn’t slowed. A woman was raped in Ballard in car dealership bathroom. A man was strangled in the shadow of the Space Needle by a homeless man in a nearby encampment. And a dad was attacked by another homeless man outside of the Cinerama in front of his daughter on Father’s Day. The day after that, the chief of the fire department said that it was too dangerous to send firefighters to homeless encampments without bulletproof and stab-proof vests.
What did our mayor do in response to this? She flew to the southern border to give a press conference focusing on how she thought the kids stuck at the border, separated from their families, needed a hug.
Here’s a quick reminder: It was our mayor using those children as pawns a year ago. She ran away from her city that was dealing with rampant violence. Her city with a rising addiction crisis on our streets. Her city that has 2,000 kids sleeping outside. Maybe some of them have their parents with them, but they’re sleeping in tents. These are our families and they are going hungry and none of them have a warm place to sleep at night.
If she had a sense of humanity, she would have at very least noticed that those kids at the border are sleeping inside with three meals and a bathroom.
You disgust me, Mayor Durkin. I hope you read this, and that tomorrow, instead of talking about how we shouldn’t use people as “political pawns,” you should consider the children that are outside in your community that you have been using as pawns for a year-and-a-half. You do not deserve to serve this city and I think at the very first moment we have a chance, every single Seattleite should vote you out of office.