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.”
