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Texas Governor Greg Abbott plans to send migrants crossing the Texas border straight to the president’s doorstep, he announced Wednesday (April 6).
The Texas Tribune reports that Abbott will provide border communities with buses to direct immigrants straight to Washington D.C. and the U.S. Capitol steps where President Joe Biden and federal lawmakers can deal with them.
"To help local officials whose communities are being overwhelmed by hordes of illegal immigrants who are being dropped off by the Biden administration, Texas is providing charter buses to send these illegal immigrants who have been dropped off by the Biden administration to Washington D.C," Abbott said in a statement.
"We are sending them to the United States Capitol where the Biden administration will be able to more immediately address the needs of the people that they are allowing to come across our border," The Texas governor added.
Chief Nim Kidd of the Texas Division of Emergency Management said in a statement that Texas will use over 900 buses to get migrants out of the state.
This comes after the Biden administration recently ended Title 42, a COVID-19 health response that shut down the border to all migrants, even those seeking asylum. The order, put in place by former President Donald Trump, stopped a massive influx of migrants from entering the U.S.
In the past two years, Title 42 has turned away migrants 1.7 million times, New York Times reports. Now that the Trump-era pandemic response has been rolled back, thousands of migrants will seek to cross Texas’ border daily.
With border security at the top of Abbott’s campaign promises for reelection, the Republican governor is targeting migrants and pushing for increased involvement of Texas law enforcement at the border.
Houston Democratic Representative Sylvia Garcia called Abbott’s announcement “shameful.”
“These are families escaping desperate poverty, ruthless violence, and life-threatening situations,” Garcia said in a statement. “They could contribute greatly to Texas if they were welcomed like Texans are supposed to do."
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