Two buses carrying migrants were also sent to the home of US Vice President Kamala Harris in September.
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
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Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Two buses carrying migrants were also sent to the home of US Vice President Kamala Harris in September.
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Several buses carrying migrants were brought down to Washington, DC, the residence of Vice President Kamala Harris on Christmas Eve — apparently the latest in an escalating battle between state officials and the Biden administration over the country’s immigration policy.
A total of three buses carrying migrants arrived at the Naval Observatory, where Harris lives, on Saturday night. According to the station, the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Assistance Network, a local grassroots organization, has met with migrants who are wearing clothing that is not suitable for freezing temperatures.
Earlier this year, several state governors began sending migrant buses to the nation’s capital, after the Biden administration attempted to lift a pandemic-era policy that allowed the United States to deny entry to immigrants.
At least one governor from these states, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, said his state are deliberately sending migrants to shelter citieswhere law enforcement discourages deportation of immigrants.
Amy Fischer, an organizer of the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Assistance Network, tell NPR All things Considered on Sunday that Abbott’s actions “were rooted in racism and xenophobia.”
“Finally, everyone who came here last night can get free transport, on a chartered bus, bringing them closer to their final destination,” she said.
Migrants’ third and final bus night of the Texas to DC immigrant bus night, with the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Assistance Network taking them to a church: pic.twitter.com/Y65B8RnilZ
– Christian Flores (@CFloresNews) December 25, 2022
In a statement in aprilU.S. Customs & Border Protection Commissioner Chris Magnus criticized Abbott’s decision to “move migrants without adequate coordination with the federal government and local border communities.”
Two previous migrant buses arrived at Harris’s residence in September. after an interview in which Harris said the border was secure.
“The border is secure, but we also have a broken immigration system, especially in the last four years before we arrived, and it needs to be fixed,” Harris said. told NBC Meet the press in a September 11 interview.
As of December 22, more than 8,700 migrants have been brought to Washington, DC, from the Texas border, and a total of 6,520 others have been brought to New York, Chicago and Philadelphia, according to the Texas governor’s office.
“This terrible crisis for Texas border communities is a disaster of your own making,” Abbott wrote. in a letter to the president on December 20. “These communities and the state are ill-equipped to do the job assigned to the federal government – home to thousands of migrants who flood the country every day. With dangerous temperatures moving into the region, many of these migrants are at risk of freezing to death on the streets.”
