On the evening of Christmas Eve, a total of three buses carrying undocumented immigrants were reportedly dropped off near Vice President Kamala Harris’s Washington D.C. residence; an act allegedly enabled by Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
ABC7 Washington reported that a group of migrants braved sub-freezing weather and gathered outside the Naval Observatory, where Vice President Harris resides. Subsequently, Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network – a local aid organization – relocated them to a nearby church for shelter.
“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 Sunday morning, via Twitter. “This is not new, it has been happening for 8 months.”
During much of the year, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has been transporting migrants from the United States-Mexico border to cities such as New York City, Washington D.C., and Chicago in order to draw attention to the escalating turmoil at said border.
Moreover, Abbott and DeSantis made a bold move over the summer by transporting numerous illegal immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard, which had been boasting its “sanctuary” status. This action provoked a lot of public attention towards the ongoing issue at the US-Mexico border.
Last week, Abbott urgently wrote to President Joe Biden requesting that his administration send federal resources to the southern border before Winter Storm Elliott caused destruction in 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 Texas governor continued.
On Saturday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) repeated its commitment to strictly abide by “our immigration and public health laws at the border.”
In an announcement, the Department of Homeland Security stated that “individuals and families” attempting to enter the United States without proper authorization are being returned under court order stipulated by Title 42 public health authority or placed into deportation 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,” the statement continued.
Last week marked the termination of Title 42, a Trump-era health order which had blocked asylum seekers from crossing the southern border due to COVID-19.
Fortunately, the Supreme Court interfered in time to prevent Title 42 from reaching its expiration date.
According to Brandon Judd, President of the National Border Patrol Council, in November there were 212,000 migrant encounters at the United States’ southern border. According to Judd, approximately 66,000 individuals who attempted to cross the U.S.-Mexico border were deported pursuant to Title 42; however, many others have managed remain in America due to certain exemptions found within Title 8 of immigration regulations.
“And those people will never be heard from again, once their [immigration] court date comes up, and that’s not going to be for several years,” Judd told Newsmax last week. “It’s basically ‘amnesty’ until [the migrants] have to show up for their final court hearing.”
Judd revealed a startling statistic that 3 million immigrants have been welcomed into the United States since President Biden’s inauguration in January 2021, which is almost double the amount allowed to enter during Trump’s presidency.