ATLANTIC CITY, NJ – U.S. Congressman Jeff Van Drew grilled Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg over the Biden Administration’s plan to house as many as 60,000 migrants at a top-secret FAA research facility in Atlantic City.
The Department of Homeland Security has identified the Atlantic City Airport, which is home to the FAA facility, a U.S. military outpost, and other sensitive national security facilities. Van Drew pointed out that the Biden Administration wants to house 60,000 migrants in a city with just 50,000 people.
“The airport is an unacceptable place to house these people,” Van Drew said. “There are no services or infrastructure at the airport that could possibly support this.”
He said it was a logistically poor concept as the airport is also the home base of an Air National Guard Unit that is on standby to protect New York City and Washington, D.C. from attack.
“These facilities cannot be compromised,” he said.
The decision to use the facility will ultimately be made by Buttigieg.
Van Drew said if a city of 9,000,000 people are having trouble dealing with the migrant crisis, how does a city like Atlantic City deal with it.
Buttigieg did not reject using the airport as a migrant facility, but said if is to be used as a migrant center, FAA security will not be endangered.
“President Biden and his administration have continually refused to enforce our nation’s rule of law. Instead of securing our southern border, the administration is spending taxpayer dollars to fly illegal immigrants across the country to areas that simply do not have the want or resources to house them. This is their mess, they deal with it and leave South Jersey out of it,” said Congressman Van Drew. “Americans are struggling enough as it is to afford basic necessities, and now, rather than dealing with the problem, President Biden is destroying cities by overpopulating them with the influx of illegal immigrants. Just yesterday, 7,000 migrants crossed our southern border. This is completely out of hand and South Jersey will not be responsible for dealing with this administration’s failures. I call on Governor Murphy to unequivocally reject this proposal.”