President Biden on Thursday condemned Republican governors for using migrants as “props” for “political stunts” as he defended his administration’s handling of the southern border.
Biden, addressing a Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute gala, did not directly name GOP governors who have in recent weeks transported migrants out of their states and to blue states and Washington, D.C. But he and other White House officials have pushed back hard on the tactic, dismissing it as a political ploy that puts migrant families at risk.
“Republicans are playing politics with human beings, using them as props. What they’re doing is simply wrong, it’s un-American, it’s reckless,” Biden said Thursday evening.
“And we have a process in place to manage migrants at the border. We’re working to make sure it’s safe and orderly and humane,” Biden continued. “Republican officials should not interfere with that process by waging these political stunts.”
Biden called for Senate Republicans to negotiate with Democrats on a pathway to citizenship for so-called Dreamers, who were brought to the U.S. as children and granted protections, as well as farm laborers and other essential workers.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) flew two planes of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts on Wednesday. He has been sending migrants to “sanctuary” cities or states, which limit their cooperation with federal immigration authorities
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has repeatedly made similar moves, including sending two buses of migrants to Vice President Harris’s residence in Washington that arrived on Thursday.
Republicans have argued the Biden administration has mismanaged the situation at the U.S.-Mexico border, leading to a major influx of migrants flowing into the country. In sending some migrants to blue states, GOP governors have argued those areas should take on some of the responsibility of caring for them.
White House officials have condemned the moves as pure politics and disrespectful to the individuals being sent across the country.
“It’s really just disrespectful to humanity. It is — it doesn’t afford them any dignity, what they’re doing, when you’re abandoning families and children in a place where they were told they were going to get housing, in a place where they were told they were going to get jobs,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said earlier Thursday. “It is just cruel.”