Texas sends more migrants to vice president’s house

Texas on Sunday sent more migrants to Vice President Harris’s Washington residence, just days after the end of Title 42, the pandemic-era rule that allowed officials to quickly expel asylum seekers at the border.

A video from a local TV station showed migrants getting off the bus outside the Naval Observatory at about 8:30 p.m. Sunday, which was also Mother’s Day. The local station reported that the migrants came from Del Rio, a city in South Texas.

Migrants had started to arrive in D.C. near the Naval Observatory last week, when Title 42 expired. At the time, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) tweeted that Texas had bused more than 17,000 migrants to the “sanctuary cities,” more than 9,200 of whom went to Washington.

This is not the first time Abbott has sent busloads of migrants to Harris’s D.C. residence, previously doing so last September and on Christmas Eve. Abbott has repeatedly bused migrants to northern cities that he says are sanctuary cities, resulting in criticism from Democrats and local officials.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas criticized Abbott’s migrant busing program last week, saying it is a “both sad and tragic day when a government official uses migrants as a pawn for political purposes.”

Abbott notified mayors of numerous cities earlier this month that he was planning to restart busing migrants to their cities, including New York City, Chicago and Washington, D.C. New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) blasted Abbott’s move, saying he was “targeting” cities with Black mayors.

Lori Lightfoot, Chicago’s mayor at the time, also took aim at Abbott, urging him to not send Chicago any more migrants. She reiterated that Chicago has “no more shelters, spaces, or resources” to address another flood of migrants to the city.