Two buses carrying immigrants were sent from Texas to Vice President Kamala Harris’ Washington residence on Thursday, amid a growing political dispute over immigration.
The state’s Republican governor said the move was intentional and called for stricter immigration policies. The episode came a day after Florida sent immigrants to a Massachusetts island.
Both states appear to be stepping up a tactic in which states with Republican governors send migrants to Democratic regions.
As political tension mounts over the number of people arriving at the US-Mexico border, states like Texas and Arizona send thousands of immigrants to cities like Chicago, New York and Washington, which they accuse of not fully complying with immigration laws. immigration.
While legal experts say the tactic is likely to be challenged in court, it remains unclear what the legal basis for such a challenge would be.
Immigration groups in Washington and on the thriving island of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts said they had not received any advance notice of the arrivals.
Footage aired on Fox News television showed two buses (supposedly carrying between 75 and 100 people) approaching the vice president’s residence — and immigrants, mostly Venezuelans, collecting their belongings and standing nearby. A non-governmental organization would later have taken them to a church.
“Harris claims our border is ‘secure’ and denies the crisis,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott later wrote on Twitter. “We are sending immigrants into your backyard to ask the Biden government to do its job and secure the border.”
‘We are in limbo’
Among the immigrants on the buses in Washington were Delinyer Mendoza and his partner Maybel, a young Venezuelan couple who arrived in the US five days ago after an arduous journey through Central America and Mexico.
Although Texas officials told the couple they were heading to Washington, the two only learned they were at the vice president’s house when they were informed by journalists.
“We didn’t know,” Maybel says. “We’re finding this out for you… we’re in limbo, and we were walking around not knowing where we were.”
The couple said they plan to spend the day with a local humanitarian organization before heading north to New York, where Mendoza has family.
Another migrant, Cuban Leonardo Perdomo, told Reuters news agency he boarded the bus in Texas after authorities offered him a ticket to Washington “for free”.
A local volunteer helping migrants, Carla Bustillos, said that immigration organizations were only informed about arrivals at the last minute.
“While we are putting on this political spectacle, we have human beings feeling that their suffering is being exploited,” he said.
In a similar move on Wednesday, two planes carrying migrants were sent to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. The resort is a traditional summer destination for Hollywood stars, and former President Barack Obama is among those who have a vacation home there.
The migrants, including children, arrived at around 3 pm (local time) on Wednesday without any warning, according to Massachusetts state senator Julian Cyr.
Officials and volunteers “moved heaven and earth” to prepare a response, as “we would in the event of a hurricane,” he said. The migrants were given food and clothing, as well as being tested for Covid-19.
Many did not know where they were, according to Massachusetts State Representative Dylan Fernandes. They had been told they would be given housing and employment, he said.
On Twitter, Fernandes described the measure as a “diabolical and inhumane” plan to use “human lives — men, women and children — as political pawns”.
Speaking at an event in Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis said the state is willing to help ease the movement of migrants so they can go to “greener pastures.”
He also said that Florida was not a “sanctuary” state. So-called sanctuary cities in the US are cities that have policies to help undocumented immigrants.
“All those people in Washington and New York were beating their chests when Trump was president, saying how proud they were to be sanctuary jurisdictions,” DeSantis said.
“The moment a tiny fraction of what these border towns deal with every day is brought to their doorstep, they suddenly go crazy.”
Aleksander Cuic, an immigration attorney and director of the Immigration Clinic at Case Western Reserve University’s law school, says that while he believes efforts to relocate migrants in this way will be legally challenged, it’s not yet clear what laws—if any, — may have been violated.
“The big question is what is being told to them, and is there some kind of fraud or incentive,” he tells the BBC.
“But how will anyone know if there’s nothing written? Maybe they [os migrantes] are willingly saying they will if there are jobs and opportunities.”
Cuic adds that Texas and Florida officials will likely argue that they “are doing the same thing” as the government, which regularly moves detained immigrants across the country.
Governor DeSantis has previously cited Martha’s Vineyard as a possible destination for migrants sent out of his state, telling reporters last year that if they went, the “border would be safe the next day.”
This year, Florida lawmakers set aside $12 million for the transportation of migrants.
It is unclear how many migrants Florida plans to send to other states. The BBC has contacted Governor DeSantis’s office for comment.
This text was originally published here.
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