Byblos Niagara Resort and Spa is a 263-room hotel in Grand Island, New York. The resort is fully booked for most of the summer. Government officials, however, apparently thought it was the perfect place to house undocumented children.
You just can't make this up:
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.
“They were thinking the hotel was abandoned and closed,” said Scott Swagler, the general manager of the facility, a former Holiday Inn undergoing a $10 million renovation.
One of the visitors was a Customs and Border Patrol agent and another had a badge that said “DHS” (Department of Homeland Security), Swagler said.
The officials proceeded to perform a security analysis of the building, fully intending, it seems, to house illegal immigrant children inside. An email from Health and Human Services to Assemblyman John Ceretto confirmed their plans:
The email, from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said HHS would “be conducting an initial assessment… to determine whether [the hotel] may be used as a facility for temporarily housing [children] who have come to the United States from other countries without an adult guardian… We have also alerted Governor Cuomo’s office.”
Not only was this embarrassing, it once again exposes the Obama administration's lack of oversight in just about every area.
But it gets worse.
Had these federal agents done a quick Google search of the facility, they would have discovered that this hotel, which until recently was a Holiday Inn, hosted a swingers convention in 2009. The renamed resort still has upscale amenities unsuitable for children, according to The Buffalo News.
Chris Collins, a Republican representative from Clarence, NY, spoke for his constituents when he responded to the government's amusing, yet shameful mistake:
“Attempts today by Washington bureaucrats to transfer undocumented immigrants to the Byblos Niagara Resort in Grand Island further exemplify their incompetence,” Collins said. “Unfortunately, this is no laughing matter.”
Perhaps the Obama administration is too busy dealing with all of its other scandals to focus on our dangerously broken immigration system.
The Byblos Niagara Resort is occupied, and it seems our White House is vacant.