Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday that Texas will provide charter buses to border communities so migrants can be sent to Washington, D.C., where the Biden administration can better deal with them.
“To help local officials whose communities are being overwhelmed by hordes of illegal immigrants who are being dropped off by the Biden administration, Texas is providing charter buses to send these illegal immigrants who have been dropped off by the Biden administration to Washington D.C.,” Abbott said.”We are sending them to the United States Capitol where the Biden administration will be able to more immediately address the needs of the people that they are allowing to come across our border.”
Abbott said the first drop off location of the buses will be at the steps of the U.S. Capitol. Texas Division of Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd said the state will have over 900 buses for this operation.
TDEM estimates the plan will require 900 charter buses to take immigrants on the approximately 30-hour bus journey to D.C. Abbott did not elaborate in his directive or his press conference on how the program will be managed or funded, and opponents quickly decried what they characterized as attention-getting antics by someone angling to run for president in 2024.
Huffington Post
Abbott also said the Department of Public Safety will immediately begin enhanced safety inspections of commercial vehicles coming through the Mexico border into Texas because human smugglers are known to use commercial trucks to transport people into the country. Abbott acknowledged that the move will “dramatically slow” traffic at the Texas border. Mexico is one of state’s largest trading partner and does hundreds of billions of dollars in trade with Texas every year.
In the midst of a reelection push, Abbott, a Republican, has made border security a top priority. Last March, he announced he was sending National Guard troops and Department of Public Safety troopers to the border to curb illegal immigration into the state in an effort dubbed Operation Lone Star.
The governor’s war on immigrants is sure to face court challenges from opponents who say he’s overstepping the federal government’s authority on immigration matters. The architects of Abbot’s plan say states have the constitutional right to defend themselves from an “invasion,” but experts say that defense is shaky.
“Just because the state says that it is an invasion that doesn’t necessarily make it so, it is not clear to me what additional legal authority that conveys on them,” Emily Berman, an instructor on constitutional law at the University of Houston, told The Associated Press following Abbott’s announcement.
Source: The Houston Chronicle and The Huffington Post