NIMBY

Published 10:09 am Wednesday, August 10, 2022

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Are you familiar with the acronym NIMBY? It stands for Not In My Back Yard. It’s used in situations where an individual might take a positive stand for a certain policy until I actually affects them. Like the mayors of New York City and Washington DC.

They were proud to proclaim their cities as Sanctuary Cities. What’s a Sanctuary City? It’s a city that feels that it doesn’t have to obey the laws of our nation, particularly in the area of immigration. We all know that it is illegal to enter the United States without a visa waiver.

We also all know that our southern border is being invaded by thousands who have no visas, but, instead claim to be seeking asylum. A person can claim that they are entering the United States because of persecution. By the way, that is legal entry, although it is being abused greatly at this time.

Email newsletter signup

A Sanctuary City or state has made a decision not to prosecute an individual who might be in this nation illegally. They have made the decision to disobey the laws of legal immigration. How they get away with that, I don’t know, but they do.

Mayors Eric Adams of NYC and Muriel Bowser of Washington DC have been proud of their respective cities and sanctuary status. So long as the vast majority of illegal immigration was occurring in the states of Texas and Arizona, no problem-o.

Those states that make up our southern border have truly suffered during these past few years. Their small border cities and, even many of the inland cities, have been inundated with many, many more illegals than they can handle. Their social services, hospitals, and schools have blown their budgets bigtime.

The governors of the states of Texas and Arizona must have been pulling out their hair as to how to handle the situation.

Greg Abbott of Texas was the first to come up with the idea of bussing hundreds of the illegal crossers to Washington to get the attention of the federal government. It didn’t matter than his state was having to deal with hundreds of thousands, the numbers that he bussed to Washington and, then NYC, were just a small percentage of the numbers that he was having to accommodate.

Mayor Bowser of DC was the first to squeal NIMBY. Her homeless shelters were being overrun and the expenses to her city budget were unsustainable. First, she criticized Governor Abbott for what he was doing and, then, cried out to Uncle Sam for some National Guard help.

Next was Mayor Adams of New York City. The pictures of the buses unloading the mostly single men were “top of the news.” He, too, expressed annoyance at the governors of Texas and Arizona. He called the action of the southern border leaders, “Horrific!” Then he asked for federal doe-re-me.

I would describe the two mayor’s reactions as “rich.” Not a peep was heard months ago as it was Texas’ problem. Now, since the problem had migrated into their back yards, it was “unacceptable.” Since it was their “dimes” that were threatened, something had to be done.

Maybe there is a silver lining to the situation. So long as it was the southern states suffering, it seemed that nothing would be done. Now that two nationally-known mayors and cities are affected, something might happen, but I’m not holding my breath.

I’m just glad for the ingenuity of Governor Abbott. His back yard is a mess and he saw a way to express his dissatisfaction and no one could blame him. Bowser and Adams were forced to see the mess and they screamed, “Not in My Back Yard!”