Massachusetts: Criminal Invaders, "Welcome." Military Veterans, "Get Lost"

And help for Kamala in her search for root causes of the border invasion

As some have heard by now, a number of fans who planned to attend the annual Army-Navy football game have had their hotel reservations summarily cancelled, due to what CBS News deceptively calls an “influx of migrants in Massachusetts.” Although there has been a flurry of publicity about this, most of it is relatively superficial and does not address the misleading labels and justification for this abomination.  In fact, this sorry episode shines a light on the administration’s failure to identify and address the root causes of what it calls the “migration,” a task that is beyond the ability of our Vice President, or anyone else of note in the administration, for that matter.  

An author’s note is appropriate here, given the almost-universal use of “migrants,” “migration,” “asylum seekers,” “immigrants,” and the like, to characterize the ongoing disaster at our southern border.  The monthly mass of humanity doubtlessly includes a relatively small number of people who are seeking asylum from political persecution. But no one has any idea how many of these there are. Others include sympathetic people who, like millions elsewhere in the world, are fleeing poverty.  They also include gang members from Central America, Mexican sicarios, terrorists from the Mideast, spies and military age single men from China, criminals of all stripes from, well, everywhere, and so on. . . . But what is clear is that these hundreds of thousands who sometimes just overwhelm any nearby officials and surge across the border en masse, are invading our Country.  I therefore shall use the more accurate terms, “invaders” and “invasion,” to describe them and what they are doing and shall not shirk from pointing out that they are violating our laws. I can only wish that our so-call leaders in the Republican party would do the same.

BACKGROUND — THE ARMY-NAVY GAME

The Army-Navy game is an American institution.  Unlike every other football game in the country (save each Academy’s game against the Air Force Academy) many of the graduating players will be on overseas deployments within a year after the game, often in life-or-death combat situations. Regardless of their team’s season record, graduates of each Academy will watch or listen to the game from somewhere in the U.S., in such places as Irbil, Iraq, Syria, the Philippines, ships at sea, and other venues across the world wherever troops are stationed. The significance of the game is marked by the customary attendance of the President as Commander-In-Chief of both sides, who typically sits on each team’s side of the stadium for half of the game (although Joe Biden has not attended since he became President).

Many Academy graduates and their families, as well as families of current cadets and midshipmen, make plans far in advance to attend.  The game gives them not only an opportunity to support their teams, but to renew old friendships that often were formed or burnished under trying circumstances. Whatever their team’s season record might be (and both sides have had their ups and downs in recent years), Academy graduates all over the world will do their best to follow the game. (The author, who is a 1969 West Point graduate, listened to the 1970 game on a small transistor radio via a weak, static-filled radio broadcast, while crouching in a foxhole shortly after conducting a stay-behind ambush on Firebase Betty in Vietnam, near the Cambodian border and right smack dab in the middle of nowhere.) 

MASSACHUSETTS: “VETERANS GET OUT”

In recent years the game generally has been held in Philadelphia. This year, for the first time, it is being played in the New England Patriots’ Gillette stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. Most fans hoping to attend made travel reservations long ago. Some, however, including those who had booked rooms at hotels managed by Giri Hotel Management, have experienced a rude awakening:  Giri summarily cancelled their reservations without any advance notice either to their guests or travel agents who booked the reservations. These cancellations were either at the behest of or in conjunction with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ wishes.  The details are unclear, since Giri will not answer questions.

This author spoke with Mark Mansbach, a New Jersey-based travel agent whose clients have been booted from Giri-managed hotels in Massachusetts.  Mark has both a son and daughter who are West Point graduates and his clientele includes a number of military families. Mark’s testimony is revealing. 

Mark had about 70 rooms blocked at three hotels managed by Giri. He had sold and had hotel confirmations for about half of these. He first heard of the problem when he heard of a “rumor” on a West Point Facebook group that room reservations for the fame were being cancelled.  He called three of the hotels where he had rooms blocked, the Comfort Inn in Foxboro and Best Westerns in Sharon and Franklin to check on his clients’ reservations and the block of rooms each hotel had allocated to him.  Initially each of them denied the rumors and claimed that they had “elected not to participate.”    

Fairfield Inn, Best Western tennis courts and patio

After more efforts to check, Mark was able to confirm that the rooms had indeed been cancelled at all three hotels, in addition to at least one other hotel, the Fairfield Inn at Dedha, which also is managed by Giri. He also learned that the decision had not been made by the local hotels but by the management company, Giri.  The explanation Mark was given was that the rooms had been “leased to the state of Massachusetts for refugees.”   These rooms were at the same three hotels that had denied to Mark that they were participating in the cancellations.¹ However, neither Mark nor his clients, the ostensible guests, had been notified either by Giri or by the hotels.  When Mark confronted Giri about why they had not notified him of the cancellations, he was essentially told, ‘Sorry, we thought we had sent you an email.’ But they stood firm on their eviction decision.  

THE FAILURE TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY AND BLAME-SHIFTING

Neither Giri nor the Commonwealth has been willing to tell the full story and acknowledge responsibility for what the Boston Herald has described as a “cluster” (half a word). Giri has not responded to the author’s calls and emails seeking answers. The statements that it has made publicly are characterized by avoidance and buck-passing. The reason given for cancelling the veterans’ rooms is Massachusetts’ “right to shelter” law. That law was passed in 1983 at the urging of then-Governor Michael Dukakis.  It is a uniquely broad mandate that requires the Commonwealth to provide “temporary shelter” to families for the “prevention of homelessness . . . or to alleviate homelessness when such family has no feasible alternative housing available.”

The Commonwealth insists that under this law it had no option but to provide the hotel rooms to the so-called “migrants,” even though they were already promised to the military families.  Get that? The State’s obligation to those who have illegally invaded our country supersedes the contractual rights of veterans and their families.  Talk about a broken system! If the Democrats want to fix a “broken immigration system,” as they repeatedly claim, this is an obvious place to start.

Giri’s attitude was revealed when it expressed its “delight” at being able to kick out the veterans to make room for the invaders:  Claire Mulholland, Giri’s VP of Marketing, gushed, “We are delighted to confirm that we are indeed taking refugees at our hotels.” Delighted?  No, seriously, delighted?  You are delighted that you are kicking out veterans and their families so you can feed at the taxpayer trough for housing the invaders? After reading about Giri’s self-proclaimed delight at this sorry situation, no veteran or family member – no American, for that matter – should ever stay at a Giri-managed hotel.  You can see their list here. 

Mulholland’s confession was not an outlier. In another tone-deaf statement, Giri said, "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." Well, does Giri consider it a “privilege” to support veterans and their families by honoring their contracts for room reservations for the Army-Navy game?  Do they think that many of those they have booted out have endured multiple separations from their families and homes for years under “challenging circumstances?”

Massachusetts and its Governor Maura Healey are attempting to duck responsibility.  CBS reports that the Governor spoke about the issue and claimed that she was "very distressed to learn that any veteran may have been moved from a hotel, who had booked a hotel for that game."  However, she was not distressed enough to disclose that the rooms were pulled because it was the Commonwealth that made them unavailable to veterans when it leased them itself. Instead, she sought to shift the blame. "As I understand it, those were decisions made by area hotels." This author spoke with an employee of the Fairfield Inn in Franklin, Mass. who was not willing to speak fully, but did contradict the Governor by saying, “The state has taken us over.”

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

In planning my calls to Giri, I prepared a half-dozen or so questions.  The final one, which was included on my email that Giri requested but has not answered, was:

To whom to you think the Country (and Giri) owes more, the veterans and their families who want to come to the game, or those who have paid the Mexican drug cartels to get them into our country in violation of our laws?

I think I know how most Americans would answer, but I still await an answer from Giri.

HARRIS’ HEAD-IN-THE-SAND AVOIDANCE OF A SERIOUS ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS

First, it is important to note that Massachusetts did and does have options other than putting the invaders up in private hotel rooms, complete with big screen TVs and all the other amenities.  In 1980 Fidel Castro inundated the U.S. with refugees (and released convicts) from Cuba.  Thousands of these were given temporary shelter at military instillations, including Ft. Chaffee, Arkansas, Ft. McCoy, Wisconsin, and Eglin Air Force base in Florida. At each location they were housed in tent cities. No one has explained why the tent city option cannot be employed here.

Massachusetts undoubtedly could have constructed tent cities on state land or sought federal assistance to place them on federal land, to house the invaders for far less than the cost of leasing hotel rooms like this:

And we would be remiss if we did not recall President Trump’s speedy deployment of federal resources, including sending emergency tent hospitals to New York at the height of the COVID pandemic. So, tent hospitals are fine for U.S. citizens (and New York was glad to get them) but tent cities are off the table for criminals who invade our country.

NYC Tent Hospital

Most veterans have spent plenty of nights in a wet foxhole or lying in the mud with only a poncho to try to keep out of the worst of the rain (forget about staying dry).  Reflecting on that for even a moment dispels any sympathy for invaders who might have to live in a tent for a while, struggling to get by without tennis courts, a big-screen TV, and their own coffee maker.

Massachusetts’ “right to shelter” law is one of the many incentives for people from South and Central America and, indeed, from all over the world, to try to crash our borders for the freebies the Biden administration hands out here. First and foremost among them is Joe Biden’s personal invitation made during the 2020 Democrat debates.  Here is what he said:

“I would, in fact, make sure that … we immediately surge to the border all those people [who] are seeking asylum. They deserve to be heard. That's who we are. We're a nation that says, ‘if you want to flee and you’re fleeing oppression, you should come.'”

Available on YouTube. Root cause, anyone?       

A complete listing of the incentives to disregard our sovereign border and flood into the U.S. is beyond the scope of this short article. But the carrots dangled out to lure invaders include laws such as Massachusetts’ implementation of its “right to shelter” law, the self-designation of sanctuary cities, billions of dollars of uncompensated health care provided to invaders by hospitals, some federal Medicaid benefits, public schooling and school meal programs, other state sponsored food handouts, free cell phones, and on and on.    

Biden’s Border Czarina, Kamala Harris, is the one charged with coming up with a solution. But she does not even hint that any of these incentives are a problem, much less a root cause of the cross-border invasion. The strategy that was prepared and published in her name confirms that.

Two months after his inauguration, Biden tapped Harris to “lead efforts to stem migration across the U.S.-Mexico border.” Four months later, Harris unveiled what she called, “U.S. Strategy for Addressing the Root Causes of Migration in Central America.” Because that strategy sets out the plan for addressing the root causes, presumably those root causes had been identified.  However, the strategic plan released by Harris and the White House does not explicitly identify them.  Instead, in typical bureaucratic-speak, it says that they will “work across” five “pillars” that the strategy supposedly will address.  The root causes that Harris and her handlers have identified can be gleaned from those “pillars.”  They are:

• Economic insecurity and inequality and resulting poverty;

• Corruption;  

• Lack of respect for human rights, labor rights, and a free press;

• Crime and violence, including extortion, and other crimes perpetrated by criminal gangs, trafficking networks, and other organized criminal organizations; and

• Crimes related to “sexual, gender-based, and domestic violence” merit a separate pillar of their own.

The strategy also incorporates two of the administration’s favorite tactics for increasing government control:  climate change and fostering pandemic panic.  The strategic plan claims that “The COVID-19 pandemic and extreme weather conditions” have exacerbated these root causes and must be addressed.

This Harris/Biden strategic plan does not identify other causes of the so-called “migration,” such as the above incentives created by the Biden administration as well as blue states and governors.  Thus, for example, the strategy document nowhere mentions “sanctuary cities or states (or any of the other carrots identified above). 

So, Madam Vice President, in your search for root causes of the ongoing invasion, you should consider this one:  Invitations from American politicians, coupled with economic incentives to come to the U.S., legally or illegally.  I have no doubt that your staff of “elites” can come up with many examples that need to be considered for elimination.  If not, then perhaps a GOP Congress might (Hope springs eternal).

1. In a call with the author an employee at the Best Western in Sharon, Mass. said that they were “not housing refugees” and that they were “not cancelling here.”  In a follow-up call, Mansbach confirmed to the author that this was, in fact, one of the hotels that had canceled the rooms reserved for his clients.