This image provided by the WJLA shows migrant families as they board a bus to transport them from near the Vice President’s residence to a church in the area after their arrival in Washington, Saturday, Dec. 2022. Local organizers in Washington say three buses carrying recently immigrant families from Texas stayed close to home in the record cold on Christmas Eve. Texas authorities have not confirmed their participation.
WJLA via AP
Three buses of migrant families recently arrived from Texas near Vice President Kamala Harris’s home in record cold Christmas Eve.
Texas authorities have not confirmed their involvement, but the bus release is consistent with previous actions by border state governors calling attention to the Biden administration’s immigration policies.
According to Tatiana Laborde, executive director of SAMU First Response, an relief agency that works with the city of Washington to serve thousands of migrants, the buses arrived late Saturday outside the vice president’s residence. The system carries about 110 to 130 people. in recent months.
Local organizers had expected the buses to arrive on Sunday but discovered on Saturday that the group was arriving in Washington soon, Laborde said. Those on board included young children.
Some wore T-shirts even though temperatures hovered around 15 degrees Fahrenheit (-9 degrees Celsius). It was the coldest Christmas Eve ever recorded in Washington, according to the Washington Post.
Laborde said staff had already prepared blankets for those arriving on Christmas Eve and quickly loaded them onto waiting buses to take them to an area church. A local chain of restaurants donated dinner and breakfast.
Most of the arrivals were headed to other destinations and were only expected to stay in Washington for a short time.
Governor Greg Abbott’s office did not respond to a request for comment Sunday morning. His office said last week that Texas has bused more than 15,000 people since April to Washington, New York, Chicago and Philadelphia.
Abbott and Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, both Republicans, have been strong critics of President Joe Biden for his handling of the US-Mexico border, which thousands of people are trying to cross every day. , many people to apply for asylum. Officials on both sides of the border are seeking urgent help in setting up shelters and services for migrants, some of whom are sleeping on the streets.
Republicans argue that Biden and Harris, appointed as the administration’s informant on the root causes of migration, have loosened restrictions that have driven many to leave their homelands. Biden ended some policies but kept others enacted by former President Donald Trump, his administration also struggled with a spike in the number of people crossing the border and at one point divided immigrant families and children as a containment initiative.
