Former President Donald Trump has been heavily criticized by local Republican and Democratic politicians for focusing media attention on the government-subsidized busloads of migrants in Charleroi, Pennsylvania.
In September, news of an immigration crisis in a small town just south of Pittsburgh made national headlines as thousands of Liberian and Haitian immigrants poured in and dramatically changed the character of the small river town while employers fled.
As Breitbart News reported, the area around Charleroi was devastated a few years ago when two major steel mills closed, putting thousands of residents out of work, and now two more major companies are signaling the end of their operations in the small town along the Monongahela River.
Since 2020, Charleroi has seen an influx of immigrants, turning the majority of the town's residents from homeowners to renters, creating a two-tiered society between English-speaking and non-English-speaking classes.
The influx of non-English speaking immigrants has led to numerous car accidents — immigrants buying and driving cars without driver's licenses or understanding road laws — increased police calls for crime and disturbances, and severe pressure on schools that were ill-prepared to accommodate thousands of non-English speaking immigrant children.
But mainstream Republicans and government officials who want cheap labor have now sided with the Democrats and are trying to block media coverage, insisting there is nothing wrong with Charleroi.
For example, Camera Bartoletta, a senator from the state of Charleroi and a Republican, told media that she was “heartbroken” that Haitian immigrants were “disrespected.”
She further noted that they were only in Charleroi “to work legally, pay taxes, raise children and be part of the community.”
In another case, Charleroi borough president Christine R. Hopkins, a Democrat, Expressed According to CBS News, she expressed “deep concern” that people were “misrepresenting” what was happening in Charleroi, and attacked Trump for mentioning the situation at one of his rallies.
“Trump has chosen to exploit our city for political purposes and unfairly target our Haitian immigrant community with divisive rhetoric,” Hopkins quipped.
But the problems are many and deep-rooted: Many immigrants live on low wages, in part because their rent, health care, education, and monthly food bills are paid for through taxpayer subsidies from state and federal governments.
Subsidized immigrant labor may be a good thing for landlords and employers who don't want to pay high wages, but it's a double whammy for working Americans who support immigrants with their tax dollars, even as those same immigrants compete for wages and housing.
The insatiable appetite for cheap labor has already turned into obscenity. Murder On the other side of the state, in Philadelphia, a man was arrested and charged with murdering another man who had bribed an immigrant employment agency.
Kevin Van Lam is accused of killing Indonesian immigrant Boyke Budiarakman after he bought his recruitment agency. Prosecutors say Lam, who emigrated to the United States from Vietnam, later discovered that Budiarakman was engaging in fraudulent and unfair business practices that were preventing the recruitment agency from making a profit. So, police said, Lam took on the task of killing his former business partner, who had stolen from him.
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