Texas Gov. Greg Abbott unveiled a brainless—and unbelievably cruel—scheme on Wednesday: to bus asylum seekers from Texas to Washington, D.C., where they will be dumped on the Capitol steps.
The announcement came in response to the Biden administration ending Title 42, a pandemic-era emergency order implemented by Donald Trump that allowed migrants to be sent back to Mexico at the border, even if they were seeking asylum. The order was intended to stem the flow of COVID into the U.S., but many migrant advocates and political observers believed it was just a pretext for Trump’s hardline immigration policies.
It is not illegal to seek asylum in the U.S., however the number of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border has swelled since President Joe Biden took office. Abbott fumed on Wednesday that the federal government was releasing large numbers of migrants into Texas.
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“To help local officials whose communities are being overwhelmed by hordes of illegal immigrants who are being dropped off by the Biden administration, Texas is providing charter buses to send these illegal immigrants who have been dropped off by the Biden administration to Washington D.C.,” Abbott said. “We are sending them to the United States Capitol where the Biden administration will be able to more immediately address the needs of the people that they are allowing to come across our border.”
He offered no specifics on how such a scheme would work except to say 900 charter buses would be mobilized, and it would be run by the Texas Division of Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd.
While it sounds like nothing more than a ridiculous stunt, Abbott claimed that buses would hit the road starting Thursday, with the first busload being dropped at the Capitol steps.
Progressive activism organization Progress Texas said the operation was “useless, expensive, and likely illegal.”
“Whether from Ukraine or Central America, seeking asylum is a human right,” the group’s president, Ed Espinoza, said in a statement. “...It’s no coincidence that Abbott’s action comes within a week of a poll showing him dropping 10 points since December—this is a campaign tactic meant to demonize immigrants and shore up Trump voters.”
Abbott announced a range of other measures to crackdown on arrivals, including enhanced screenings of commercial vehicles coming through the border into Texas, boat blockades on the Rio Grande, and the installation of barbed wire along frequently used low river crossings.
“EXCELLENT ideas,” a salivating Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) tweeted, adding that he filed federal legislation to also bus “illegal aliens” to liberal sanctuary cities like Palo Alto, Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, and Rehoboth Beach. (Welcoming undocumented immigrants is generally the point of sanctuary cities and states.)
The Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services in Texas, the largest legal aid group of its kind in the state, pointed out that states can’t enforce federal immigration law, calling Abbott’s orders “fear mongering to a problem that doesn’t exist.”
“We see what you are doing here, and it’s disgusting,” the group tweeted. “Greg Abbott is trying to Make Texas White Again.”
Read it at Texas Tribune
