Two busloads of migrants from Del Rio, Texas, were dropped off Thursday morning outside the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., where Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff reside.
The buses contained between 75 and 100 people from Venezuela, Uruguay, Colombia, and Mexico, according to Fox News.
The move came as a response to VP Harris’ statements earlier this week that the border is “secure.”
“Our supposed Border Czar, Vice President Kamala Harris, has yet to even visit the border to see firsthand the impact of the open border policies she has helped implement, even going so far as to claim the border is ‘secure,’” said Gov. Abbott. “Texas will continue sending migrants to sanctuary cities like Washington, D.C., until President Biden and Border Czar Harris step up and do their jobs to secure the border.”
VP Harris commented on border safety in an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.
“The border is secure, but we also have a broken immigration system, in particular over the last four years before we came in, and it needs to be fixed,” she told host Chuck Todd.
The latest buses from Texas arrived just hours after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis followed through on a similar promise to send migrants to Democrat-controlled areas, sending two planes full of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard on Wednesday.
Carla Bustillos of Sanctuary DMV was in D.C. to assist the migrants sent by Gov. Abbott, telling Fox News her group was “at Union Station since 6 in the morning waiting” and “just heard 20 minutes ago that the drop-off was this one.”
“We’ve already set up a church and a location — a safe location for them to tell us where they need to go next, where they have relatives,” she continued.
The busing program, which offers migrants bus rides after they are processed and released at the border to await an asylum hearing, started with one-way rides to Washington, D.C., in April.
Since then, Abbott has expanded the program to include bus rides to other Democrat-run cities, including New York and Chicago. His office says the program has transported more than 10,000 migrants to the sanctuary cities.
As of August 9, Texas had spent over $12 million in taxpayer dollars to finance the program, according to a state government spreadsheet obtained by CNN through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The Democratic leaders of the cities Gov. Abbott has sent migrants to have complained about the influx straining their cities’ services and resources.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said in a Wednesday statement that the city’s safety net for receiving the migrants “is nearing its breaking point” and that the city might need to reform how it supports those arriving.
“In this new and unforeseen reality, where we expect thousands more to arrive every week going forward, the city’s system is nearing its breaking point,” Adams said. “As a result, the city’s prior practices, which never contemplated the bussing of thousands of people into New York City, must be reassessed.”
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser has twice requested that the National Guard be activated to assist with the thousands of migrants arriving in the nation’s capital. However, both requests have been denied by the Pentagon.
Last week, Bowser declared a public health emergency to deal with the migrants and created a new government office to coordinate their arrivals, which will cost an initial $10 million in taxpayer dollars.
Brianne Nadeau, a member of the D.C. City Council, blamed Gov. Abbott and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey for the city needing to declare a public emergency.
“So, it’s been said, but it’s worth reiterating, that the governors of Texas and Arizona have created this crisis. And, the federal government has not stepped up to assist the District of Columbia,” Nadeau told reporters Thursday. “So we, along with our regional partners, we’ll do what we’ve always done. We’ll rise to the occasion.”