MONTGOMERY – Who sanctioned three flights carrying immigrants into Orange County Airport in the Village of Montgomery this past week remains unclear.
Roughly 25 teens under the age of 17, mostly girls, boarded a chartered bus at the airport. It was stopped by local and State Police in the village after another pilot reported seeing suspicious activity at the airport.
Sources told Mid-Hudson News on Friday night that Homeland Security was involved with the flights, but a federal official with that agency denied that.
On Saturday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued an e-mailed statement to Mid-Hudson News. “Children under the age of 18 who arrive at the southwest border without a parent or legal guardian are placed in the care of vetted sponsors by the Office of Refugee Resettlement while they await their immigration proceedings. This is done in close coordination with each vetted sponsor who is agreeing to care for the child and is mandated by long-standing legal requirements that have existed under multiple administrations to provide safe, appropriate care to unaccompanied children during the time they are in our care,” a government agency official said.
Meanwhile, former Montgomery Village Mayor Bill Schimpf said, “It has been said that the occupants on the local airplane shipments are being bused to a City of Newburgh church basement for shelter and further distribution, as well as the City of Middletown.”
Source: Mid-Hudson News
MONTGOMERY – Under the cover of darkness Friday evening a plane landed at the Orange County Airport in Montgomery and dozens of teens were observed running to a waiting coach bus.
Sources said 25 youths, mostly girls under the age of 17, were sent to Orange County from El Paso, Texas as part of the ongoing movement of immigrants from the Lone Star State to other areas of the country as ordered by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The passengers were from Honduras and Guatemala.
When the large bus left Orange County Airport, it turned onto Route 211 in the Village of Montgomery and police were there to pull it over. There were three adults on the bus, including the driver, all with Texas driver’s licenses.
State and Montgomery Village Police stood guard as officials attempted to call Homeland Security and other agencies to learn details of the shipment of people to the north.
This was the third flight this week from Texas to the county airport bringing passengers north. All of them were reportedly going to be relocated in various parts of New York State.
One source said the plane was routed to the small county airport so as not to draw attention that it might otherwise have caused at New York Stewart International Airport at nearby Newburgh or Westchester County Airport in White Plains, both of which have been used in recent months to send immigrants north.
Source: Mid-Hudson News
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