Washington DC was the site of a second arrival of a busload of undocumented migrants who apparently voluntarily accepted rides to the city from Texas on Thursday.
The state’s governor, Greg Abbott, is engaged in a duel with the Biden administration over his criticism of their handling of illegal migration. Republicans have resisted every effort by the Biden administration to roll back cuts to legal migrations as well as policies deemed as inhumane, and in particular demanded that the CDC reaffirm the Department of Homeland Security’s ability to turn asylum-seekers away at the border due to Covid concerns, a policy that most agree was being used as a blanket means of halting asylum claims.
A day earlier, Mr Abbott’s administration oversaw the first arrival of a busload of migrants to DC, which arrived outside the headquarters of several media organisations including right-leaning Fox News, which touted the story as an exclusive.
Fox News did not answer questions from The Independent regarding whether its journalists had collaborated with Mr Abbott’s office to have the migrants dropped off outside their offices. The Washington DC mayor’s office also did not respond to multiple requests for comment regarding what assistance the city was providing to migrants once they arrive.
There has been much dispute in the media over what authority Mr Abbott has to bus migrants out of his state, across multiple other states and into the District of Columbia; the Texas governor appears so far to be ignoring those concerns and pressing on with the plan.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki previously questioned why the governor of Texas would have the authority to dictate the movement of undocumented migrants around the US, but so far the Biden administration has taken no concrete steps to oppose his efforts.
Each busload is thought to carry around 40 migrants, according to local media reports. It was unclear if migrants were offered any kind of assistance upon arriving in DC; some appeared to arrive in family units, while others were alone.
President Joe Biden last year appointed his vice president, Kamala Harris, to lead a campaign addressing the root causes of migration across Central and South America but so far the administration’s efforts have not had a significant effect on curbing northward migration.
