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Metro Detroit Reacts To Plan To Transport Controversial Immigrants To Saginaw Area

VASSAR, MICH. (WWJ) Michigan is now part of the ongoing immigration debate as over 100 undocumented children from Central America are expected to be brought to a facility in Vassar, Michigan -- in the Thumb Area, near Saginaw.

Wolverine Human Services, a Grosse Pointe-based social service agency, would provide the shelter. But some metro Detroiters aren't sold on the idea.

"Why are they thinking of housing them there? ... I appreciate the plight of the Central Americans, but we are a nation of laws and we have to try to obey those laws otherwise we degenerate into chaos," one man in the area told WWJ's Mike Campbell for an on-air report.

The housing would only be temporary until they are given immunizations, physicals, counseling, and life skills.

President Barack Obama says lawmakers must decide if they are more interested in politics or solving the problem created by tens of thousands of minors from Central America who have entered the U.S. via the Mexican border. President Obama has called the immigration issue an "immediate humanitarian crisis."

It's a hot button issue, with some saying the United States has to welcome the people in desperate need of help -- and others taking the hard line.

"We do more for other people than our own people in Michigan," a woman told WWJ's Mike Campbell.

Another man asked: "We're supposed to be taking care of our, why bring in others at the expense of people we already have?"

 

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