Washington, December 25 (RHC)-- Multiple busloads of migrants were dropped off at U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’s residence in Washington, DC on Saturday -- Christmas Eve -- in a rebuke of President Joe Biden's border policies, according to reports. The migrants were left on the streets in below-freezing temperatures as an arctic blast gripped much of the United States on Saturday.
The migrants were reportedly driven to DC and arrived outside the Naval Observatory, which is the U.S. vice president’s residence. Later, they were taken to a church by the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network, a local aid group amid the intensifying immigration fight between Republicans and the Democratic president.
According to ABC 7 and Fox News, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) was behind Saturday’s incident. The governor is sending migrants to Democratic-run cities as a way to force the Biden administration to take steps to control immigration into the United States.
Abbott sent two buses full of migrants to Harris’s residence in DC in September, inciting a backlash from Democrats. In recent months, other Republican governors, including Florida’s Ron DeSantis and Arizona’s Doug Ducey, have transported migrants to Democratic-run cities across the country.
“Tonight, on Christmas Eve, Gov Abbott’s buses dropped off migrants at the VP’s house in the freezing cold,” the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network wrote on Twitter early Sunday. “This is not new, it has been happening for 8 months.”
Abbott wrote a letter to Democratic President Joe Biden last Tuesday demanding that his administration send federal assets to address the situation at the border, especially as temperatures drop and a winter storm approached Texas.
“You and your administration must stop the lie that the border is secure and, instead, immediately deploy federal assets to address the dire problems you have caused,” Abbott wrote. “You must execute the duties that the U.S. Constitution mandates you perform and secure the southern border before more innocent lives are lost.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement Saturday that it “continues to fully enforce our immigration and public health laws at the border.” “Individuals and families attempting to enter without authorization are being expelled, as required by court order under the Title 42 public health authority, or placed into removal proceedings. As temperatures remain dangerously low all along the border, no one should put their lives in the hands of smugglers, or risk life and limb attempting to cross only to be returned,” DHS added.
The agency said 23,000 agents and officers are “working to secure the Southwest border and the United States Government continues to work closely with our partners in Mexico to reinforce coordinated enforcement operations to target human smuggling organizations and bring them to justice.”
The US Supreme Court last Monday temporarily stopped the expiration of Title 42, the Trump-era policy that allows border officials to turn away asylum seekers because of public health concerns. Former president Donald Trump implemented the order at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. His administration claimed the order was to help prevent the spread of the virus across the U.S.' borders with Mexico and Canada.
However, health experts, immigrant rights advocates and leading Democrats argue that scientific evidence does not support its stated goal of helping to stop the spread of the virus.
