Texas and Arizona, two border states with Republican-headed governments, have carried out operations in which they sent 79 buses filled with illegal aliens to Washington, D.C.
Officials from the two states told the Washington Examiner that over 2,500 migrants who illegally crossed into the United States and were subsequently let go by Border Patrol were placed on state-provided buses and sent to the doorstep of Joe Biden and Congress.
“These people are wanting to go somewhere else. They’re not wanting to stay in Arizona,” Morgan Carr, a spokeswoman for Arizona Governor Doug Ducey told the Examiner. “From what we’re seeing, they’re all primarily [headed to] the East Coast.”
Since Governor Greg Abbott of Texas began his initiative in mid-April, the Lone Star State has sent over 2,000 people aboard 65 buses to D.C.
Arizona has transported 523 migrants aboard 14 buses since it began its operation in May.
A quarter of the migrants from Arizona said they intend to go to New York after arriving in the nation’s capital. New Jersey and Florida were the next most-popular destinations for the illegal aliens.
Approximately 69 percent of the Arizona migrants transported to Washington were from Colombia. The next most-represented country was Peru, accounting for 15 percent of the migrants, and Carr said there were eight Russians among those who left on a bus Tuesday.
Arizona authorities say Ducey’s program eases the migrant burden on towns such as Yuma, which has seen a major surge in illegal crossings over the last year.
The Examiner notes of the situation currently confronting the border community:
Because hundreds of migrants are released and permitted to travel anywhere in the country from Yuma each day, regional airports and bus lines are overwhelmed. The 90,000-person city is a three-hour drive from Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Transporting migrants released from custody has been a challenge, according to Mayor Douglas Nicholls (R), but with limited flights, a local nonprofit group is looking at other ways of transporting migrants to out-of-state airports, including in Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
Abbott unveiled his initiative on April 6, saying that busing migrants out of his state would “take the border to President Biden.” While the Texas governor asserted they would leave migrants at the Capitol, the buses have left them near Union Station. The charter buses and security guards being used for the transportation have been acquired through contracts with private firms.
Arizona expects the federal government to reimburse them.
“This is a problem caused by Washington. We’re bringing it to Washington, and we expect Washington to foot the bill. We’re going to send them a bill,” Ducey spokesperson C.J. Karamargin told the Examiner.
The idea helps alleviate the migrant issue in Arizona and Texas border towns. And the fact that illegal aliens are being placed where Congress and Biden can see the consequences of their virtual-open border policy gives the initiative appeal in right-wing news. But is it really an effective solution?
Arizona officials admit that many of the migrants they move are going to Florida, a fellow Republican state that itself is trying to reduce the number of illegal aliens within its borders. Thus, the policy doesn’t really force Washington to deal with the migrant crisis it created. Instead, the illegal aliens are glad to travel to D.C. as a rest stop on their way to their real destinations.
In fact, there’s nothing stopping them from going back to Arizona or Texas whenever they please. And to top it all off, all of this busing is paid for by taxpayers. The migrants are more than happy to get a free ride.
Thus, this initiative may serve to score short-term political points among the conservative base, but it is far from a viable solution.
The real solution is simple: Border states should fully take over the functions of immigration enforcement. States such as Texas and Arizona have made progress in doing that with efforts to build a border wall and use National Guardsmen and law enforcement to supplement the Border Patrol.
These states must now go forward with deporting the illegal aliens they detain, rather than letting federal authorities continue with the present policy of catch-and-release. It’s the only way to ensure illegal migrants don’t become a public burden to taxpayers or a nuisance to other conservative states.
