Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has made securing the border his top campaign issue as he runs for reelection. (Juan Figueroa/Dallas Morning News/TNS)
WASHINGTON — Gov. Greg Abbott made good on his vow to send migrants from Texas to D.C. as state officials dropped off a busload of asylum seekers there early Wednesday morning.
Abbott’s office said the migrants from Colombia, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela were dropped off between the U.S. Capitol and Union Station, a major transportation hub. The announcement said a second bus is en route to D.C.
“By busing migrants to Washington, D.C., the Biden Administration will be able to more immediately meet the needs of the people they are allowing to cross our border,” Abbott said in a statement. “Texas should not have to bear the burden of the Biden Administration’s failure to secure our border.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the migrants Texas is transporting to D.C. have all been processed by Customs and Border Protection and are free to travel about the country while they await the outcomes of their immigration proceedings.
“It’s nice the state of Texas is helping them get to their final destination,” she said.
Fox News reported that the Texas Division of Emergency Management dropped off dozens of migrants about 7 a.m.
The bus, which traveled from the Del Rio sector in Texas, unloaded outside a building housing offices for Fox News and other media outlets, Fox anchor John Roberts reported. The building is a couple blocks north of the U.S. Capitol, where Abbott had said he would send migrants. Fox covered the arrival live on TV.
Two or three dozen migrants onboard checked in with officials and had wristbands they were wearing cut off before being told they could go, the report says.
Abbott unveiled the busing plan as part of his response to the Biden administration’s announcement that it would end a public health order it has used to immediately expel asylum seekers at the border.
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The governor, who is running for re-election, was raising funds off the news by Wednesday afternoon, sending an email to supporters with the Fox article and erroneously calling the migrants “illegal immigrants.”
Abbott has said he would only transport migrants to Washington if they wanted to go there and had already been processed and released by federal authorities, meaning they were allowed to stay in the U.S. to make their cases for asylum, a legal form of immigration.
A spokeswoman for Catholic Charities in D.C. said the organization provided information for those who rode the bus on where to get food and medical care, if they were in need. CNN reported that some who got off the bus said the ride was over 30 hours long and that they were provided food and water along the way. Some were planning to leave D.C. for other cities, CNN reported.
Abbott’s move sparked outrage among immigrant advocates and Democrats on Wednesday.
“Of *course* Greg Abbott ordered the bus with migrants on it to show up in front of Fox News headquarters here in DC,” tweeted Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, Senior Policy Counsel at the American Immigration Council. “It’s an incredibly dehumanizing and cynical stunt.”
U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, a Houston Democrat, called it a “heinous political stunt.”
“He is targeting innocent people for simply escaping desolate poverty, cruel violence, and extremely dangerous situations,” she said in a statement.
Republicans, meanwhile, were cheering the move.
“Washington D.C. is a border town,” tweeted U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
ben.wermund@chron.com