This Sanctuary City Claims to Know Who is Responsible for its Migrant Crisis: The Lord Almighty

In-fighting and finger-pointing by public officials scrambling to manage migrant crises — caused in large part by their own illegal alien sanctuary policies — have dominated headlines over the past several weeks; governors blaming mayors, mayors blaming governors, both blaming Biden, while all run for political cover. Now, the blame game has just reached a preposterous new level that only the most desperate leftists could concoct. And if the tactic catches on, it’s one that might just absolve everyone from responsibility for everything.

God caused the migrant crisis, and it’s a matter of law mind you.

At least, so say the city attorneys in hard-hit Portland, Maine – a sanctuary jurisdiction that has been inundated by 1,500 migrants this year, most of them from East African and Middle Eastern nations.

Portland attorneys are defending the city against a civil lawsuit by Promerica Health Care, a company that had reserved space and dates for a convention it had planned to host at the Portland Exposition Center. Unfortunately, that location has been converted into temporary shelter to house hundreds of migrants who have already overflowed 12 local hotels and numerous school gymnasiums.

However, the city is now weaseling out and accepting no responsibility for the breach of contract. According to them, the migrant surge was an “Act of God” under force majeure, a commonly included clause in legal agreements covering wars, strikes, and other unanticipated occurrences such as natural disasters. Boiler-plate force majeure typically includes language such as neither party shall be held liable or responsible to the other party… caused by or resulting from events beyond the reasonable control of the affected party.

Things “beyond the reasonable control” of the affected party?

Hardly.

Portland is a perfect example of cause-and-effect, and the estimated 10,000 migrants now residing in a city of only 68,000 is not, and never has been, beyond the city’s “reasonable control.” In fact, Portland’s migrant explosion is the expected, if not the intended, result of deliberate policies going back many years.

As the Maine Wire reports:

In April of 2019, after former Republican President Donald Trump floated the idea of sending illegal migrants to sanctuary cities, Ethan Strimling, then-mayor of the city, rolled out the welcome mat. “If he wants to send more immigrants our way, bring them on,” adding that “Portland is a sanctuary city where those who have entered the country illegally need not worry about U.S. immigration laws being enforced.”

You reap what you sow, thus not surprisingly, Portland’s social services budget has swelled $43 million over last year, and emergency plans are in place to relocate migrants to smaller rural areas of Maine, all while migrants continue arriving by the busloads.

If city officials want to make the argument that God is responsible for the mess in which Portland finds itself, they also have to acknowledge the theologically-aligned argument about free will, man’s responsibility for his own actions, desires, and consequences.

Portland officials bit the apple and no longer live in the Garden of Eden. Whose fault is that?