Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has been bussing migrants from the Texas-Mexico border to Washington, D.C. for months. D.C.'s mayor says the influx has caused a "humanitarian crisis."
July 29, 2022
Gov. Greg Abbott during a roundtable Thursday said he does not know the total number of migrants that have been bused from Texas to the national's capitol.
Screenshot / Office of Governor Greg Abbott FacebookWashington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser formally requested activation of D.C. National Guard units last week to help with the influx of migrants bussed into the capital from Texas, NBC4 reported Thursday.
Gov. Greg Abbott started chartering buses to drive migrants to D.C. in early April, with Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey following suit, sending migrants from his state to D.C. and other so-called 'sanctuary cities' starting in May.
The rapid arrival of about 4,000 or so migrants from Texas and Arizona has overwhelmed D.C.'s public and advocate-based services, resulting in a "humanitarian crisis" that has reached a "tipping point," Mayor Bowser wrote in a letter to U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin last week.
Bowser said the nation's capital has poured about $1 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) grant money into caring for arriving migrants from the two border states and "supported the multiple NGOs that have stepped up to meet and care for arriving migrants."
But Bowser warned that "with pledges from Texas and Arizona to continue these abhorrent operations indefinitely, the situation is dire, and we consider this a humanitarian crisis—one that could overwhelm our social support network without immediate and sustained federal intervention."
This is the second letter Bowser has sent to federal officials requesting help from the federal government in the past few weeks. Days after penning her letter to Sec. Def. Austin, Bowser sent a similar appeal to White House aides requesting activation of at least 150 D.C. National Guard members to help the city manage incoming migrants.
Gov. Abbott said April 5 that he planned to start bussing migrants arriving at Texas' southern border to the U.S. capital. The bussing program aims to defy the Biden administration's plan to roll back Title 42, often called the "remain in Mexico" policy, which President Biden announced on April 1.
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