The feeral government is offering contracts between $500,000 and $100 million to states that are willing to help handle a surge of unaccompanied migrant children crossing the border of the United States.
Last week the Malloy administration denied the government’s request, saying the proposed facility–the old Southbury training school– isn’t up to code.
Today protesters with the Connecticut Immigrant Rights Alliance called on the governor to reconsider.
John Lugo from the Connecticut Immigrant Rights Alliance said, ” I would say to him that he should stop playing politics and care about the kids. You go to any town in Connecticut and there are many empty spaces so I don’t think that’s a good excuse.”
Lugo thinks if city and state leaders put their heads together they could return to the federal government with an offer to use other state buildings.
He suggested New Haven’s unoccupied old Gateway Community College on Sargent Drive. Another suggestion was the armory.
Lugo says Connecticut has an opportunity to save some 2,000 refugees who are in desperate need and are fleeing violence in Central America.
Lugo says, “Just between the border of Guatemala and United States, there are so many things that can happen to them. They can disappear, they can be raped they can be murdered, become like sex slaves so many stories that we hear all the time.”
Late Tuesday afternoon the governor’s office told Fox CT that Malloy spent more than an hour on the phone with the White House and the Department of Homeland Security. “It appears that substantial progress has been made to diminish the need for housing children for extended periods in large scale institutional settings,” representatives in Malloy’s office said. “The federal government has placed more than 320 children with relatives in Connecticut.”