The mayor of Washington, DC, Muriel Bowser, has requested that the National Guard mobilize troops to assist in processing illegal immigrants arriving on buses from the southern border.
According to Ms. Bowser, the influx of 4,800 migrants from the U.S.-Mexican frontier has created a “humanitarian catastrophe” and reached a “tipping point” in her city.
The bus trips were organized by the Republican governors of Texas and Arizona as a form of protest against the border policies of the Biden administration, as immigration has reached historic numbers across the southern border. Trump-era laws, on the contrary, had made it possible for border patrol to turn away practically all unauthorized asylum seekers.
In April, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, one of President Joe Biden’s most outspoken detractors, started providing migrants freed from federal jail with state-funded bus transportation. A month later, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey did the same, claiming that “little action or help from the federal government” was the reason the volunteer bus journeys were required.
“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,” said DC Mayor Bowser.
In a similar vein, New York City Mayor Eric Adams also attributed some of the Big Apple’s safety net and shelter system’s “real burden” on the busing programs.
“If 4,000 is a tipping point, what the hell do you call the three & a half million illegal immigrants who’ve crossed our southern border?”, commented GOP Senator Ted Cruz on Twitter. A similar reply was offered by Governor Ducey: “Mayor Bowser is lamenting 4,000 migrants – Arizona had 43,570 border encounters in June alone.”
