Maine’s international reputation as a welfare magnet continues to draw large numbers of illegal immigrants here, much to the delight of the cheap-labor lobby at the State House, as well as the sprawling Nanny State Nonprofit Industrial Complex of taxpayer-subsidized leeches who benefit from the foreign invasion.
If you thought the surge of non-citizen newcomers into Maine during Gov. Janet Mills’ first term was stunning, hang on, it is shaping up to be much worse in her second.
The ink was hardly dry last month on LD 3 – Mills’ $483-million heating, housing, and welfare boondoggle – when 400 more illegals arrived in Portland. That’s as many border crashers in the first month of 2023 as stepped off the Greyhound buses in Portland during the entire summer of 2019.
Apparently the non-citizen newcomers didn’t get the memo that America is a systemically racist country – or that Maine has a housing shortage so severe that rent has become unaffordable for nearly half of all Maine tenants.
But never mind, because it’s the “old Mainers” who are being squeezed, and their lives don’t matter.
Big Sister Janet is going to make sure the border crashers go to the head of the line for free housing. As for the thousands of lifelong Mainers who languish on the affordable housing waitlists, they’re used to waiting – heck, some of them have been waiting for years, so it’s no big deal if they have to wait some more.
[RELATED: Illegal Border Crossings Into Maine Spiked in 2022, Still Lower Than N.H. and VT…]
Those old Mainers just need to step aside to make way for the “new Mainers” who are Maine’s future, after all.
The 400 foreign nationals who crashed the southern border and headed for Maine last month include 63 families with an average of 2 children each, most of whom will soon be enrolled in local public schools if they aren’t already. In addition, another 151 of the border-crashers who arrived in January are individuals without spouses or children.
At this point, we don’t know how many of those 151 individuals are military-age males.
One thing we do know for sure: House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross (D-Portland) has a plan (LD 199) to give them all free healthcare. That’s in addition to free rent in brand-new apartment complexes in Portland, South Portland, and Brunswick that the Legislature approved with lopsided bipartisan majorities this year and last.
[RELATED: Maine Bill Would Extend Medicaid Benefits to Illegal Aliens…]
When news of Madam Speaker’s “Freebies for Foreigners” bill broke last month, Republican legislative leaders were less than emphatic in their opposition to this radical proposal that would make Maine the first state to offer Medicaid benefits to all adult residents who are in the country illegally.
House Minority Leader Billy Bob Faulkingham (R-Winter Harbor) told the Portland Press Herald that his caucus would be skeptical about such a bill. But Faulkingham said he looked forward to reviewing it to see if it was “sensible and compassionate” and affordable.
Fortunately, many members of the House GOP caucus, unlike Faulkingham, are willing to draw a sharp contrast between themselves and Madam Speaker on this issue.
Sponsored by Rep. Randy Greenwood (R-Wales), LD 668 has one whale of a title: “An Act to Protect Maine Taxpayers by Requiring a Person to Be a United States Citizen to Receive General Assistance Benefits and to Ensure Municipal Compliance with Federal Immigration Laws.”
The bill is co-sponsored by Sens. Eric Brakey (R-Androscoggin), Peter Lyford (R-Penobscot), and Marianne Moore (R-Washington), and by Reps John Andrews (R-Paris), Gary Drinkwater (R-Milford), Laurel Libby (R-Auburn), Jennifer Poirier (R-Skowhegan), Tracy Quint (R-Hodgdon), and Shelley Rudnicki (R-Fairfield).
If enacted, LD 668 would prohibit municipalities from giving General Assistance to non-citizens, and cut off state funding to any municipality that protects illegal immigrants from deportation — so-called “sanctuary cities” such as Portland.
Neither bill has yet been scheduled for a public hearing.
In the meantime, you may want to contact your state Representative and your state Senator to see where they stand.
