While some communities locally and around the country are worried about the possibility their towns or cities might suddenly play host to undocumented immigrant children, the Mayor of Rochester may be receptive to the idea.
On Sunday, City Hall issued a statement saying that last Friday, Mayor Lovely Warren was asked for a reaction to Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner’s offer to welcome immigrant children to Syracuse. Warren responded by saying that while she didn’t have many details on Miner’s proposal for Syracuse, she was open to the idea of something similar in Rochester.
“Rochester is a city of great culture,” Warren said. “We have a number of people who embraced our community and we embrace them. I am thankful that we have so many refugees that have come to our city, the Somalis, the Nepalese and the great Hispanic population here. Our community has embraced people of all walks of life. We appreciate that here and we always will.”
A city hall spokesperson says that Rochester Chief of Staff Jeremy Cooney, was contacted by a lobbyist on behalf of the owner of Blossom South to see if there was any interest on the part of the city in supporting the concept of turning the former nursing home into a facility to house immigrant children.
A spokesperson for the mayor says this was a simple inquiry and no proposal or plan was offered and says that Cooney will brief the mayor on Monday.
Recently concerns were raised in the towns of Greece and Sweden when there were reports that the federal government might have been interested in trying to place shelters in those communities. In both cases, officials later said there are no longer proposals to do that.
