Republican South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster issued an executive order Monday preventing the state from taking in undocumented migrant children and placing them in the state’s foster care and group home system.
The South Carolina Department of Social Services (DSS), in a letter dated April 8, told McMaster the federal government was making inquiries about possibly transporting an unknown number of migrant children from the southern border to be placed in the state’s childcare systems.
McMaster issued an executive order barring the state from taking unaccompanied minors in.
“South Carolina’s children must always be given first priority for placement into foster care and the State’s strained resources must be directed to addressing the needs of its children,” McMaster said in a statement. “Allowing the federal government to place an unlimited number of unaccompanied migrant children into our state’s child welfare system for an unspecified length of time is an unacceptable proposition.”
“We’ve been down this road with the federal government before and the state usually ends up ‘on the hook,’” he added.
McMaster cited a strain on the state’s resources and the likelihood that the state “may ultimately incur a long-term financial burden if families are not located in a timely manner and the federal government ceases providing direct support for unaccompanied minors.”
McMaster also cited the possibility that since the federal government is allegedly planning on financially incentivizing private providers in the short term to house the migrant children then South Carolina children would not be prioritized.
The number of migrant kids arriving at the border has exceeded the federal government’s ability to hold them, documents from the Department of Health and Human Services show.
*story by The Daily Caller
