Monday morning saw another busload of illegal border crossers arrive at New York City’s Port Authority terminal.
The city’s commissioner of immigrant affairs, Manuel Castro, was there to personally welcome 52 people off the bus, of whom 80% were single men, witnesses said.
“Many other people who are here have told us that the families who have boarded the buses in Texas don’t want to go to New York City,” Castro claimed, echoing Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser’s unsubstantiated claim that illegal border crossers are being forced onto buses against their will.
In fact, Bowser has never backed up her assertion that “[i]In many cases, they board buses that have been rented. lied to about what’s going to be on the other end … .”
According to a reporter from the Daily Caller, migrants getting off a recent bus at Union Station in Washington “told me that the entire process was voluntary.”
Bowser’s, reality is also sinking inAccording to groups that help them upon arrival, about 15% of bused-in illegals wish to remain in the national capital. Bowser, who last January refused federal assistance for dealing with riots in the capital, now takes buses of migrants much more seriously.
The Department of Defense refused to grant her requests for 150 soldiers per day from the D.C. National Guard to assist with the influx and for federal property to be used as a staging area.
D.C. congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton’s attempt to get federal emergency appropriations also seems unlikely to succeed, but meanwhile, the congresswoman has written to the national board of the Emergency Food and Shelter Program asking it to “permanently eliminate the cap” on reimbursements for long-distance travel for migrants.
“We anticipate that Texas and Arizona will continue to bus migrants to D.C. indefinitely,” said Norton. She wants as many of them out of her city—and into someone else’s—as federal money will pay for, also indefinitely.
The Emergency Food and Shelter Program was intended to help transition homeless Americans into permanent shelter, and the national board “encourages” local boards “to place special emphasis on identification of and assistance to the elderly, families with children, Native Americans, and [v]eterans.”
There’s no mention of indigent immigrants, legal or illegal, yet that is the fund being used to feed, house, and arrange travel for D.C.’s bus-borne arrivals.
Like Bowser, New York Mayor Eric Adams insists that he will keep meeting demand, as New York has a “right to shelter” law.
Adams and his team may wish to portray arriving migrants as desperate and ill treated, but exiting passengers appear well-dressed.
Gary Jenkins, commissioner of New York City’s Department of Social Services, bragged of the “Pampers, milk, formula, food for the families” and Metro cards the city provided, but said one family’s response to free transport was “No, I’d rather take an Uber.”
This family was eagerly waiting to move to America and avoid the tedious requirements of immigration law. They are legitimate asylum seekers is less obvious.
Adams’ latest planIt is being reported that the plan is to set up illegal border crossers at Milford Plaza Hotel on Times Square. Rooms there cost more than $400 per person per night. The plan won’t be ready for a month or more, and with large groups continuing to cross the border illegally, housing for a mere 600 won’t last long.
Adams claims that more than 4,000 migrants have crossed from Mexico to New York, filling the homeless shelters meant for locals. Texas authorities claim they have sent only 360 migrants to New York, and almost 7,000 to Washington, D.C.
Norton describes the government’s busing of migrants as “busing”. Greg Abbott and Doug Ducey, of Texas and Arizona, respectively, a “cynical political stunt.” Speaking of stunts, in response to Texas’ and Arizona’s efforts, Washington, D.C., Attorney General Karl Racine has just created a grant program for local organizations to help the “vulnerable migrants” (who appear to be, like those arriving in New York, mostly working-age men).
Racine has set aside a total $150,000 in grants—up to $50,000 each to nongovernmental organizations and charities—to service arriving supposed “asylum seekers.”
At roughly $21 a head, Racine’s total grants might be enough for one day’s food per migrant. Even assuming that 85% of them move on quickly to other U.S. locations, that leaves a number of new indigents on the D.C. taxpayers’ dime.
In announcing the grants, Racine touted the partisan efforts of his Office of the Attorney General to undermine federal immigration law, including his joining a legal challenge to the Trump administration in favor of “sanctuary” cities and refusing to help federal authorities with immigration enforcement.
It is amazing to see the hypocrisy displayed by big, blue city officials such as Adams, Bowser and Racine. They brag of being “sanctuary” cities, yet are incensed that some of the 2 million or so illegal aliens who have arrived in the U.S. on President Joe Biden’s watch should want to take them up on their generosity.
Bowser has said publicly that “local taxpayers are not picking up the tab. They should not pick up the tab … . We really need a coordinated federal response.”
However, the coordinated federal effort right now is behind getting as many migrants off the border and into the country’s interior as fast—and with as little publicity—as possible. Abbott’s and Ducey’s busing of willing volunteers is just shedding inconvenient light on the national disgrace of abandoned immigration enforcement.
Both local Democratic elected officials, such as Adams and Bowser respectively, seem to be content with unlimited illegal immigration in principle, but neither want to pay for that. Immigrant advocates, in contrast, aren’t shy about hitting up local taxpayers.
Ashley Tjhung of the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network, which coordinates charities assisting illegal alien arrivals in Washington, said, “The mayor is sitting on millions of dollars within the D.C. budget.” D.C. Council member Brianne Nadeau recently requested that Bowser tap into the city’s budget surplus. No surprise there: Nadeau was a leader of the council’s efforts to help people living in D.C. illegally resist federal law enforcement.
Mayors like Bowser and Adams, if they wish to remain true to their “open borders, no enforcement,” sanctuary city rhetoric, will have to delve deeper into voters’ pockets and ask them to divert resources intended for local residents to illegal aliens, with no end in sight.
Or, you can vote for those voters. could demandCongress Stop the abuse of the asylum process and properly use the Migrant Protection Protocols. Also, finish erecting physical barriers at the border. Biden might even be forced to allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement to do their job within the country.
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