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Residents of one Pennsylvania county are in an uproar over potential plans to use a former school for Civil War orphans to house migrants.

The Scotland School for Veterans’ Children was opened in 1895 “as a school for orphans whose fathers were lost in the Civil War,” according to LocalNews1.org.

“It was administered by the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs since 1996,” the news site notes. “Gov. Ed Rendell forced the school to close in 2009 by eliminating state funding.”

“In 2013, the Winebrenner Theological Seminary purchased the campus, but it has since fallen into disrepair. It has since changed hands,” according to the news site.

Fast-forward to last month, when Greene Township, a city in Franklin County, received an inquiry from a staffer with a disaster relief contractor in Indiana, USA Up Star, asking whether the school could be used as “a shelter for families seeking refuge within the United States.”

Greene Township reportedly responded by noting that this wouldn’t be legal under current zoning codes.

“In an August letter to the USA Up Star staffer, Greene Township zoning officer Daniel Bachman wrote that its most recent use as a summer camp falls within its R-1 – or low-density residential – code and that higher-density shelter would not be permitted,” Fox News notes.

Bachman in turn responded by writing that USA Up Star would appeal the ruling and that the organization was working with the Biden-Harris administration on the matter.

Greene Township officials followed up with a public statement claiming that for the time being, there are no plans for the former school.

“There is no plan, proposal, application or submission from any party regarding the Scotland campus for Greene Township to act upon at this time, nor has the township been alerted to expect one,” the statement reads.

But this hasn’t stopped Republican lawmakers from crying foul.

“We are united in our opposition to illegal immigrants being housed by federal government contractors in Franklin County,” state Sen. Doug Mastriano and state Rep. Rob Kauffman said in a joint statement released on Monday.

“We join with our neighbors, friends, and constituents committed to defending Franklin County from the foreign invasion coming from our southern border. This facility usage, as envisioned by some outside groups, would irreparably change Greene Township. We must preserve our community for our children and grandchildren!” they added.

Appearing on Real America’s Voice earlier this week, Mastriano warned that housing migrants at the school is “going to spike crime, assaults.”

Listen:

He added that young migrants might climb over the school’s fence and terrorize locals.

“They’re going to go into the buildings of Greene Township and the community nearby and rampage, steal, break into houses, and cause harm to people,” he said.

Green Township supervisors have reportedly also raised concerns.

“Though we have no involvement in the project, we do have significant concerns about its impact on our county,” they said in a statement. “While these minors would be housed on the Scotland campus, the influx of support staff — and their families — would be overwhelming for our local communities.”

They added that there’s already a housing crisis in the county on account of Franklin County being the 13th fastest-growing county in the state, and they warned of a potential strain on vital services such as water, sewer, trash collection, and broadband.

“Franklin County is already experiencing a housing shortage, and affordable workforce housing and quality rental options are at a premium,” they wrote. “Our county’s population has increased every year since its founding in 1784; today it is the 13th fastest growing county in the Commonwealth. The addition of several thousand new residents at one time would only burden and stress the housing market even more.”

All this comes amid an influx of migrants and criminal aliens all across the country because of the Biden-Harris administration’s disastrous, lax border policies.

Vivek Saxena
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