A flurry of buses dropped off dozens of migrants at the Washington, D.C., residence of Vice President Kamala Harris on a frigid Christmas ...
A flurry of buses dropped off dozens of migrants at the Washington, D.C., residence of Vice President Kamala Harris on a frigid Christmas Eve.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott and other Republicans leading southern states have arranged the transport of thousands of migrants to liberal enclaves such as Chicago, New York City, Martha’s Vineyard, and Washington, D.C., in recent months to draw attention to the U.S.-Mexico border crisis.
With the temperature dipping into the teens, buses with approximately 50 migrants were expected to arrive late Saturday in front of the U.S. Naval Observatory, a source told CNN. A reporter with 7News, a local ABC affiliate, caught what he said was the third and final bus of the night, noting it came from Texas.
Video posted to social media by the reporter, Christian Flores, showed what he said were migrants picking up their belongings and boarding another bus destined for a local church. They included women and children.
CNN’s Noah Gray cited Amy Fischer with the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid saying the asylum-seekers were originally headed for New York but “shifted to DC because of the weather.”
He reported the migrants were being bused locally by the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network.
These migrants arrived in D.C. as the Supreme Court decides the fate of Title 42, a controversial Trump-era public health order that allows U.S. border agents to turn away migrants, including those seeking asylum, on an expedited basis. A group of Republican-led states, including Texas, are fighting the Biden administration in court to keep the emergency powers alive, warning of the potential for more chaos at the border.
U.S. authorities reported more than 2 million migrant encounters at the border in fiscal year 2022, a marked increase from the prior year. When that figure was reported in October, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Chris Magnus said “failing regimes in Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua” were driving a new wave of migrants across the western hemisphere.
In announcing buses traveling to outside of Harris’ home in the Naval Observatory in September, Abbott noted the vice president was President Joe Biden’s pick to lead his administration’s efforts to tackle the migration challenge at the U.S.-Mexico border — a job which critics say she has failed to take seriously.
“The Biden-Harris Administration continues ignoring and denying the historic crisis at our southern border, which has endangered and overwhelmed Texas communities for almost two years,” Abbott said in a statement at the time. “Our supposed Border Czar, Vice President Kamala Harris, has yet to even visit the border to see firsthand the impact of the open border policies she has helped implement, even going so far as to claim the border is ‘secure.’ Texas will continue sending migrants to sanctuary cities like Washington, D.C. until President Biden and Border Czar Harris step up and do their jobs to secure the border.”
In October, Harris took a swipe at Abbott, saying his actions were “an absolute dereliction of duty” during an appearance on NBC’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers.”
“If you see a problem and we agree that we need to address it, then if you’re a leader, participate in a solution, right?” Harris added. “They’ve fled great harm and they are coming here seeking refuge. Talk about political theater.”
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