Texas Gov. Greg Abbott recently made good on his promise to bus illegal immigrants to the nation’s capitol in response to the Biden administration’s announcement that it would be ending Title 42 ejections from the southern border.
The Biden administration announced it was ending Title 42 ejections as record numbers of immigrants have attempted to cross into the U.S. On March 6, Abbott announced at a press conference that Texas would charter buses to take illegal immigrants to Washington, D.C., “where the Biden administration will be able to more immediately address the needs of the people they are allowing to come across our border.”
The move is intended to “help local officials whose communities are overwhelmed by hordes of illegal immigrants being dropped off by the Biden administration,” Abbott said. He clarified later that boarding these buses would be voluntary.
Fox News reported today that the first bus from Texas has reached Washington, D.C., with immigrants from Colombia, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
On Tuesday, Abbott tweeted a link to a Fox News report with the following note: “First Texas bus drops off illegal immigrants blocks from US Capitol in Washington, DC. Biden refuses to come see the mess he’s made at the border. So Texas is bringing the border to him.”
According to Austin Journal, Abbott also announced more aggressive vehicle inspections intended to slow human smuggling and trafficking, implementing what Abbott described as a “zero-tolerance policy for unsafe vehicles used for smuggling,” adding this would “dramatically slow traffic from Mexico into Texas.”
Abbott cites data that daily encounters with illegal immigrants will total 18,000, more than triple the daily average, once Title 42 expulsions expire, according to Austin Journal.
