Buses of Migrants Arrive at Kamala Harris’s Home on Christmas Eve - The New York Times

Politics|Buses of Migrants Arrive astatine Kamala Harris’s Home connected Christmas Eve

WASHINGTON — Over a 100 migrants arrived adjacent Vice President Kamala Harris’s location connected Saturday evening, 1 of the chilliest Christmas Eves connected grounds successful the capital, according to a communal assistance group.

Volunteers anticipated 3 buses with astir 130 immigrants to get successful New York connected Christmas Day, but the buses were rerouted to the Washington country due to the fact that of roadworthy closures and frigid conditions, said Madhvi Bahl, an organizer with the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network.

Migrants arrived successful Washington aft a 36-hour journey, immoderate with small much than a T-shirt oregon a airy blanket, Ms. Bahl added. The communal assistance radical helped coordinate question and lodging for the migrants and provided food, coats, shoes and different lukewarm articles of covering to combat temperatures that plunged beneath 20 degrees.

The communal assistance radical said the buses were sent by the Texas Division of Emergency Management, which follows the directive of Gov. Greg Abbott’s office. Mr. Abbott’s bureau did not instantly respond to a petition for comment.

“They person been doing that for a fewer months now; it’s each for the spectacle,” Ms. Bahl said of the governor’s office. “The cruelty is the point. It’s atrocious to usage radical successful this manner, for governmental reasons.”

The 3 buses appeared to beryllium the latest sent by Republican governors on the confederate borderline to Democratic-led cities, and the scores of migrants were not the archetypal to beryllium dropped disconnected adjacent Ms. Harris’s location connected the grounds of the Naval Observatory.

Mr. Abbott announced the authorities would statesman chartering buses successful April, sending a governmental connection to places similar Washington, New York and Chicago and offloading immoderate of the strain caused by grounds levels of immigration.

In a letter to President Biden past week, Mr. Abbott criticized the president’s borderline policies and said the influx near migrants “at hazard of freezing to decease connected metropolis streets.”

“Texas has borne a lopsided load caused by your unfastened borderline policies,” helium wrote. “The request to code this situation is not the occupation of borderline states similar Texas.”

Mr. Abbott’s concerns included the imaginable lifting of Title 42, a pandemic-era nationalist wellness argumentation that allowed for the accelerated expulsion of migrants.

Thousands of migrants were waiting crossed the Texas border connected Wednesday, erstwhile the argumentation was acceptable to expire and bring an expected surge successful borderline crossings. However, the Supreme Court ordered a delay of the policy’s extremity date, keeping the wellness bid successful spot for astatine slightest respective much days.

The White House condemned the busing of migrants to Washington successful a connection connected Christmas Day.

“Governor Abbott abandoned children connected the broadside of the roadworthy successful below-freezing temperatures connected Christmas Eve without coordinating with immoderate national oregon section authorities,” said Abdullah Hasan, a White House spokesman. “This was a cruel, unsafe and shameful stunt.”

Mr. Hasan added that the medication has repeatedly said it was consenting to enactment with some parties connected borderline information and migration reform, stating that “these governmental games execute thing and lone enactment lives successful danger.”