COLUMBIA, S.C. — South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster has issued an executive order that won't allow unaccompanied minors from the Southern Border to be housed in South Carolina.
McMaster handed down the order Monday afternoon, directing the South Carolina Department of Social Services to prevent the state from placing undocumented, unaccompanied migrant children in South Carolina foster care or group homes.
“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 letter to DSS Director Michael Leach. "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.’”
Leach had told McMaster back on April 8 that the federal government had made preliminary inquiries about housing migrant children in the state, but had not gotten specific, including about a possible number. At that time, he indicated there were six private providers who'd expressed some interest in taking in the children.
But two days later, Leach told McMaster in another letter that there would be several risks to bringing them to the state, including a strain on the system, federal incentives that he felt might cause providers to prioritize migrant children over normal DSS placements, and concerns over long-term financial burdens.
Over the weekend, McMaster visited the U.S. Southern Border.
McMaster is not the first governor to take this action. Last week, Iowa's Kim Reynolds blocked an efforts to participate in the program, saying this was not her state's problem but "the President's problem."