{"id":6318,"date":"2014-07-16T17:25:06","date_gmt":"2014-07-16T17:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=6318"},"modified":"2014-07-18T12:12:44","modified_gmt":"2014-07-18T12:12:44","slug":"officials-seeking-shelter-for-young-illegal-immigrants-thought-island-hotel-was-vacant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=6318","title":{"rendered":"Officials seeking shelter for young illegal immigrants thought Island hotel was vacant"},"content":{"rendered":"

Officials sought shelter for children<\/strong><\/em><\/h1>\n

\"AR-140629736.jpg&maxW=602&maxH=602&AlignV=top&Q=80\"<\/a><\/p>\n

by\u00a0Jerry Zremski<\/p>\n

WASHINGTON \u2013 A humanitarian tragedy at the U.S.-Mexican border took a weirdly comic turn in Grand Island on Friday, as federal officials showed up at what they thought was a vacant hotel that might be able to house children who entered the country illegally \u2013 only to discover the fully occupied and recently renamed Byblos Niagara Resort and Spa.<\/p>\n

The federal agents arrived unannounced at about 10 a.m. to inspect the 263-room property for possible use as housing for some of the 52,000 unaccompanied minors who have been apprehended at the southern border this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were thinking the hotel was abandoned and closed,\u201d said Scott Swagler, the general manager of the facility, a former Holiday Inn undergoing a $10 million renovation.<\/p>\n

One of the visitors was a Customs and Border Patrol agent and another had a badge that said \u201cDHS\u201d (Department of Homeland Security), Swagler said.<\/p>\n

Judging from their questions, it seemed they were doing a security analysis of the building, he added.<\/p>\n

An occupancy analysis might have been more helpful, given that the hotel is currently fully booked and will be for much of the summer, according to Swagler.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, a Google search would have revealed that the facility \u2013 previously a Holiday Inn that notoriously hosted an \u201cEntice the Falls\u201d swingers convention in 2009 \u2013 now offers an upscale range of amenities that still might not be appropriate for children.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe feature tastefully appointed guest rooms with balconies overlooking the river, a fitness center, indoor and outdoor pools, plus a sauna and whirlpool,\u201d the hotel\u2019s website says. \u201cTake in a round of golf at the adjacent River Oaks Golf Course. Enjoy a delicious meal in Currents Restaurant overlooking the river and unwind over a cocktail in our comfortable lounge.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hotel is located at 100 Whitehaven Road in residential Grand Island, where neighborhood residents might feel uncomfortable with children who entered the country illegally moving in nearby, Swagler said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a complete shock to me\u201d that the government would consider the facility for such a purpose, he added.<\/p>\n

It was also apparently a complete shock to the government agents to discover what the Byblos Niagara Resort and Spa is really like. Byblos Hospitality Group of Dubai joined two local partners \u2013 downtown Buffalo developer Roger Trettel and Buffalo General Medical Center surgeon Dr. Fadi Dagher \u2013 to purchase the hotel in January 2013, and the new owners already have spent at least $4 million on renovations, Swagler said.<\/p>\n

After seeing the facility, the government officials \u2013 who did not leave business cards \u2013 left, telling Swagler, \u201cIt looks like there\u2019s been a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

How that mistake was made remains a mystery.<\/p>\n

Swagler said the agents told him that Acquest Development, an Amherst company that recently developed a new federal building in Buffalo, recommended the Grand Island site to the federal government. Michael Huntress, Acquest\u2019s founder, did not respond to a phone call seeking comment.<\/p>\n

Local officials and members of Congress did not know the building was under consideration for housing children living in the country without legal permission until Friday afternoon, when they received an email from Fatima A. Cuevas, deputy assistant secretary for legislation at the Department of Health and Human Services, where the Administration for Children and Families\u2019 Office of Refugee Resettlement is trying to accommodate all the new arrivals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and General Services Administration will be conducting an initial assessment of Lexington Commerce Center in Rochester, NY (located at 1600 Lexington Ave.) and the Byblos Niagara Resort in Grand Island, NY (located at 100 Whitehaven Road) to determine whether it may be used as a facility for temporarily housing children who have come into the United States from other countries without an adult guardian,\u201d wrote Cuevas. Asked via email about how HHS ended up inspecting a fully occupied resort and spa, Kenneth J. Wolfe, a spokesman for the Administration for Children and Families, did not reply.<\/p>\n

And when questioned for details of the plan earlier in the day, Wolfe would only say: \u201cWe do not identify the locations of regular\/permanent Unaccompanied Alien Children program shelters, for the safety and security of minors and staff.\u201d<\/p>\n

The government agents\u2019 unusual visit to the Byblos resort came on the same day that the Obama administration announced a series of measures aimed at stemming the tide of Salvadoran, Guatemalan and Honduran families fleeing to the U.S.<\/p>\n

Those measures include an increase in immigration judges and attorneys, new detention facilities for families that arrived illegally in the U.S. and economic aid to help El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras resettle its citizens once they are sent back home.<\/p>\n

Children who arrive in the U.S. alone pose a much more difficult challenge for the federal government.<\/p>\n

Under federal law, Border Patrol agents must hand those children over to the Department of Health and Human Services within 72 hours of their arrival. That agency then tries to place those children with family members if possible as they await immigration hearings, but many of the new arrivals have no family in the U.S., meaning the government has to accommodate them elsewhere.<\/p>\n

There is no evidence to date of large numbers of homeless alien children arriving in upstate New York, said Eva Hassett, executive director of the International Institute of Buffalo, which operates a refugee resettlement program.<\/p>\n

But writ large, \u201cthis is an enormously serious problem,\u201d Hassett said. \u201cThese are basically people who are running for their lives, who are in great danger on a lot of different levels.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s obvious that the federal government made a mistake here,\u201d Higgins said. \u201cObviously something that is of a sensitive nature like this would require due diligence that was obviously not exercised here.\u201d Meanwhile, Rep. Chris Collins, R-Clarence, said the episode is yet more evidence that the Obama administration has failed to effectively enforce the nation\u2019s immigration laws.<\/p>\n

\u201cAttempts today by Washington bureaucrats to transfer undocumented immigrants to the Byblos Niagara Resort in Grand Island further exemplify their incompetence,\u201d Collins said. \u201cUnfortunately, this is no laughing matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

For his part, though, Swagler couldn\u2019t help but find some humor in his surprise visit with the federal agents.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were joking with them about maybe sending them over to the Statler,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Officials sought shelter for children by\u00a0Jerry Zremski WASHINGTON \u2013 A humanitarian tragedy at the U.S.-Mexican border took a weirdly comic turn in Grand Island on Friday, as federal officials showed up at what they thought was a vacant hotel that … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6318\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}