Last week, President Joe Biden announced that by the end of May, Title 42 will no longer be in effect – which could mean a tsunami of migrants flowing over the southern United States border. Already embattled with the influx of migrants on his state’s border, Governor Greg Abbott announced on Wednesday that he would bus undocumented immigrants to the nation’s capital “to help local officials whose communities are being overwhelmed by hordes of illegal immigrants who are being dropped off by the administration.”
Abbott spoke to the hosts of “America’s Newsroom” regarding the announcement and how the repeal of Title 42 could further affect his state. The Texas governor, who is no stranger to tangoing legally with President Joe Biden, said that current White House policies have created “chaos” in the Lone Star state. Abbott also called out President Biden because, Abbott says, the president has “refused” to visit the border in his fourteen months in the presidency.
Abbott added, “(So) we’re going to take the border to him.”
On Wednesday, Fox News reporter Bill Melugin shared video of migrants being released at a bus station in Brownsville, Texas. Melugin also added that these individuals are provided with a smart phone. When pressed about the phones, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki admitted that the phones are given to the migrants in an effort to track them.
Abbott shared that these individuals would be processed by DHS before they were placed on a bus to DC.
The Texas governor also shared that the Department of Homeland Security has predicted that as many as 18,000 people could cross the southern border on a daily basis once Title 42 is allowed to expire. The Texas National Guard and other Texas agencies are currently holding training exercises to practice for what is expected to be a huge surge in the number of migrants coming into America.
Similarly, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has said that any migrants “dumped” in his state would summarily be bused to Biden’s home state of Delaware.
DeSantis had just signed into law the No Patient Left Alone Act when he began speaking on his plan. “If Biden is dumping people . . . they haven’t done it lately . . .We now have money where we can reroute them to sanctuary states like Delaware – and we’re gonna do that.”
DeSantis was referring to flights of migrants being brought into Jacksonville, Florida in late 2021. DeSantis had spoken of this happening, but, until a video surfaced of contractors speaking with local police in New York and the world learned that these late night flights into the interior of the United States were an actuality. Even then, DeSantis vowed to do something about the problem.
Governor Abbott said on Wednesday regarding busing the migrants to DC: “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.” Since Joe Biden took office in January 2021 and stopped construction on the border wall, over one million migrant encounters have taken place. Last summer, a group of Haitian migrants were filmed living in a tent city under a bridge not far from the Rio Grande River. Unaccompanied minors have been found as young as three and four years old traveling alone.
Last week, a group of about 80 migrants were found in a travel trailer hauling rotten produce across the border. More recently, a vehicle driven by a sixteen year old was involved in a car accident in which all the migrants he was attempting to smuggle across the border were killed.
Title 42 currently sends about fifty percent of all migrants back across the border to Mexico. Members of the Republican Party have vehemently opposed the repeal of Title 42, and Democrat Joe Manchin (WV) has also voiced concern for the expected surge of migrants. Arizona’s Mark Kelly (D) also expressed apprehension at the ending of the current policy.
