US pulls plan for sheltering children in Va.

Associated Press

RICHMOND, Va.

The government is shopping for a new location to temporarily shelter hundreds of Central American children after residents and officials of a tiny Virginia farm town angrily protested the secretive selection of their community.

In a statement issued Friday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services cited concerns in Lawrenceville, Va., in taking “this proposal off the table.” The department said it would immediately look elsewhere to “house these vulnerable children.”

Residents of the town in Virginia’s southern tobacco belt complained at first that they were kept in the dark, learning about the proposal only days before the children were to arrive. They then voiced a range of other concerns, appealing to U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner and other members of the state’s congressional delegation to come to their aid. The Democrat said it was “the right call.”