Lawrenceville, Virginia’s 1,500 residents have just learned how progressives operate. The impoverished and majority black community had no say when the head of the Health and Human Services green lighted the transport of 500 illegal immigrant kids up to age 17 from shelters in the Southwest to St. Paul’s College in the southern Virginia town.

Officials of St. Paul’s, a historically black college shut down last year, agreed on June 13 to house the kids for at least five months. Federal government personnel toured the “quaint campus” the day before signing a contract.

The $100,000 per month taxpayer-funded bribe the HHS is dangling in front of the college smells of trading third-world, unsupervised kids for jobs and money.

From the Brunswick Times-Gazette:

An email from Emily Barson, Principal Deputy Director, Office of Governmental and External Affairs, Department of Health and Human Services, to Mayor Doug Pond and Lawrenceville Town Manager C. J. Dean dated Friday, June 13, 2014 at 6:57 p.m. alerted them that a contract was signed that day to use the Saint Paul’s College in Lawrenceville as a facility to house the children and children could arrive as early as next week. Barson said she also alerted Governor McAuliffe’s office and will keep them posted on developments.

The Brunswick Gazette reportedly tried to reach Saint Paul’s College President Millard D. “Pete” Stith on June 13 with no response. However, Dr. Oliver Spencer, Jr., chairman of the Board of Trustees, did call on Friday, around 1:30 p.m. and said no final arrangement had been reached.

Responding to citizens’ concerns, Representative Robert Hurt sent a letter to HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell requesting that they halt the plan to move kids to Lawrenceville. Hurt cited “very serious” public health and safety issues brought to his attention by townspeople and local elected officials. 

On Monday afternoon, HHS informed Hurt they had “paused” the process and the minors would not be arriving this week. Whether the contract has been rescinded is not known. Brunswick County Sheriff Brian Roberts announced earlier Monday that federal government officials will be on hand to answer questions at a community forum scheduled for Thursday, June 19 at 6:30 p.m. at the Brunswick High School auditorium.

One big question for Obama’s reps is why Lawrenceville? Why not Tennyson Street in Washington-Chevy Chase, where do-gooder liberals live in their million-dollar homes? Talk about race and class warfare.

It’s okay to put kids who have not been medically cleared in a small town that is 76.2%  black and where the median income is $26,028, but not in ritzy, upper northwest DC. 

Obama received 95% of the black vote in 2008 and 93% in 2012 so there is little doubt the majority of blacks in Lawrenceville turned out to elect the first black president. But this is how progressive ideals work out in the real world.

The townspeople of Lawrenceville are of no further use to Obama. Consequently, they were not consulted about the “youth immigration shelter” being set up in their midst. Did residents want their town to be used as a dumping ground for illegal immigrant kids with no parents?  No one asked them.

Instead, the more than 47,000 children apprehended at the Mexican border from Latin America since October are now being marketed to  poverty-stricken and minority communities like Lawrenceville—a place that has only a 1.8% Hispanic population. 

Sheriff Roberts told Fox News he “met with federal officials Monday in a session he said felt more like a "sales pitch." He was told the story of a 15-year-old boy and how he traveled through Mexico from Central America. Roberts was skeptical of how an undocumented teen could have both medical and background checks at the border while carrying nothing but "his hat in hand."

At Thursday’s meeting, Roberts and other concerned citizens of Lawrenceville should tell the feds  if they insist on warehousing illegal immigrants, then why not place them in Chevy Chase or Georgetown or Martha’s Vineyard?