D.C. Mayor Declares Emergency over Migrant Buses: Crisis ‘Certainly Not of Our Making’
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Washington, D.C., mayor Muriel Bowser declared a public emergency on Thursday in response to the arrival of thousands of migrants in the district on buses from Texas and Arizona.
The declaration allocates funding to create an Office of Migrant Services, which will provide migrants with temporary accommodations and transportation, as well as meet their urgent medical needs.
“We’re putting in place a framework that would allow us to have a coordinated response with our partners,” the mayor said. “This will include a program to meet all buses, and given that most people will move on, our primary focus is to make sure we have a humane, efficient, welcome process that will allow people to move on to their final destination.”
“Regardless of the federal response — which I think has been lacking in some respects — that the District of Columbia would continue to work with partners to advance what we need and ensure our systems in D.C. are not broken by a crisis that is certainly not of our making,” Bowser added.
The declaration comes after Texas governor Greg Abbott said the Lone Star state is “filling gaps left in Biden’s absence at our border,” in part by busing illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities.
Abbott noted late last month that Texas has “made over 19,000 arrests, seized over 335.5M lethal fentanyl doses, & sent over 7,400 migrants on buses to DC and over 1,500 to NYC.”
Abbott previously said he decided to send busloads of migrants to Washington, D.C., and New York City “because of President Biden’s continued refusal to acknowledge the crisis caused by his open border policies,” saying that “the State of Texas has had to take unprecedented action to keep our communities safe.”
“In addition to Washington, D.C., New York City is the ideal destination for these migrants, who can receive the abundance of city services and housing that Mayor Eric Adams has boasted about within the sanctuary city,” he said when the first busload arrived in New York this summer.
Last month the Pentagon rejected a second request by Bowser to deploy the National Guard to “help prevent a prolonged humanitarian crisis in our nation’s capital resulting from the daily arrival of migrants.”
She requested 150 personnel to help transport migrants to the D.C. Armory where the mission would help the illegal immigrants on their “eventual movement to their final destinations,” Bowser wrote.
The Pentagon rejected the mayor’s first request on August 4. Defense Department executive secretary Kelly Bulliner Holly then sent a second rejection letter to Bowser on August 22 explaining that the D.C. National Guard is not trained to assist migrants, according to a copy of the letter obtained by several media outlets.
“The DCNG has no specific experience in or training for this kind of mission or unique skills for providing facility management, feeding, sanitation or ground support,” the letter read.
“Approval of this request would also result in a substantial readiness impact to the DCNG,” Holly said. “Devoting the personnel or the facility for such an extended mission would force the cancellation or disruption of military training.”
The letter noted that several non-government organizations and civilian groups are assisting with the arrival of migrants.
