FAIR:
The far-left folks at Maine’s Portland Press Herald are pretending to be concerned by the fact that their city’s native-born population has dropped to 40 percent in recent years, according to the 2024 American Community Survey. While the paper’s May 8 article questions whether the loss is a problem (ultimately, of course, the piece concludes it isn’t), the “analysis” posits every possible reason for the collapse while conveniently avoiding the real one.
According to their glossy explanations, native Mainers are being replaced by entrepreneurs, free-spirits, and artsy types from other states, such as “the film-maker who moved from Michigan whose respect for the arts was important when she was deciding where her peripatetic life would take her.” The paper cites the COVID pandemic as another reason that “outsiders” moved in, resulting in an eight percent drop in the ratio of native-born since 2019.
While it’s a quaint assessment and not without some validity, the paper refuses to acknowledge a broader truth: Portland, and the entire state of Maine, has systematically torqued up its sanctuary policies and become a major depot for refugee resettlement and a magnet for illegal immigration.
In 2003, Portland’s City Council passed a sanctuary ordinance prohibiting local officials from inquiring about immigration status or honoring Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainers. Likewise, in 2017, Cumberland County, in which Portland is situated, put sanctuary policies in place, prohibiting its jail from honoring detainer requests.
The die was cast. Thanks to local NGO’s and immigrant advocacy organizations, word-of-mouth spread over time, and Portland became a preferred migrant hub. Thus, by the spring of 2023, thousands of asylum seekers had arrived. Most were in dire need of housing assistance, which forced officials to place them in 12 local hotels, school gymnasiums, and Portland’s large Expo Center. Costs skyrocketed such that the city’s social services budget increased $43 million over the previous year.
Thousands of illegal aliens and their children – mostly from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola – settled in Portland. As a result, 70 percent of the students now enrolling in the Portland school district – doing so under the provisions of the Supreme Court’s 1982 Plyler v. Doe decision – have limited English skills. Across the school district, 57 languages are now spoken, which imposes monumental classroom challenges. One former school official admitted, “Every teacher needs to know how to teach students who speak other languages… as we continued to welcome in so many new students it felt like we were at a tipping point.” READ MORE