Another busload of migrants from Texas has arrived outside Kamala Harris’s posh Washington, DC residence on Saturday morning.
This is the second time in 48 hours that Harris, whom President Biden tasked with handling the crisis at the southern border last spring, has had migrants outside the front gates of her posh Number One Observatory Circle residence, with two more buses carrying 101 migrants arriving there on Thursday.
All three buses were chartered by Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Six more buses traveling from El Paso arrived in New York City on Saturday morning.
Texas and Arizona have been sending migrant busloads to Washington, DC, New York and Chicago, with the US capital declaring a public emergency over the matter last week, and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot calling Abbott a “racist” last month over the provocative policy.
Saturday’s arrivals were taken to a local shelter soon after arriving. Most of the immigrants are said to hail from Venezuela.
Harris blasted Abbott and his Florida counterpart Ron DeSantis on Friday, accusing the Republican governors of “playing games” and engaging in “political stunts with real human beings who are fleeing harm” by sending buses and planes full of migrants to northern cities.
“I think it is the height of irresponsibility, much less – just, frankly, a dereliction of duty, when you are an elected leader, to play those kinds of games with human life. If you think there is a problem, be part of the solution,” Harris said in an interview with Vice News.
The vice president blamed the Trump administration for the current crisis, accusing it of “decimating” the immigration system and forcing the Biden team to spend the last year-and-a-half devoting “an incredible amount of time and work and resources to reconstruct that system,” including via legislation on a pathway to citizenship for illegals.
The Florida governor drew fresh attention to the illegal immigration issue on Wednesday by chartering two planes to drop about 50 illegals off at Martha’s Vineyard, a wealthy liberal Massachusetts enclave and Democratic Party stronghold town where the average home costs over $1 million and 80 percent of residents are white. DeSantis’s move prompted Massachusetts authorities to call out the National Guard, and whisk the migrant arrivals away to Joint Base Cape Cod, a local military base.
Illegal immigration has become a major issue in voters’ minds ahead of the upcoming November midterm elections. A Morning Consult/Politico poll conducted in August found that 55 percent of Americans disapprove of President Biden’s handling of immigration, and that 47 percent see it as a “critical threat to the vital interests of the United States in the next 10 years.”
US Customs and Border Patrol have recorded more than 1.94 million encounters at the border during the current fiscal year, up from previous record of 1.73 million encounters recorded a year ago. The CBP’s current fiscal year ends September 30.
Illegal immigration to the United States began surging immediately after President Biden stepped into office and scrapped his predecessor’s hardline approach to the issue, halting construction of the Trump border laws and pledging to reform asylum laws. The presidents of Mexico and Guatemala have accused Biden and his aides of helping to spark the crisis by inflating hopes among potential migrants and incentivizing gangs known as “coyotes” to engage in the smuggling of human beings and drugs across the border.
16 September 2022, 05:18 GMT