Gov. Greg Abbott’s bus of migrants traveling from Texas arrived in Washington D.C. on Wednesday.
As previously reported by Human Events News, Abbott announced that amid a mass surge at the border - 18,000 per day - the state of Texas will start transporting illegal immigrants to the steps of the U.S. Capitol building.
Abbott met last week with law enforcement officials in Del Rio and Weslaco, where he announced a series of new strategies being added to Operation Lone Star.
The strategies include using taxpayer money to send illegal immigrants right to the Capitol.
“We are sending them to the U.S. Capitol where the Biden administration will more immediately be able to address the needs of the people that they are allowing to cross our border,” Abbott said.
Abbott also ordered the state to charter flights to transport migrants to D.C. after they've been processed by the Department of Homeland Security.
The White House last week dismissed Abbott’s plans to send migrants to Washington as a “publicity stunt,” The Hill reports.
“I’m not aware of what authority the governor would be doing that under,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters. “I think it’s pretty clear this is a publicity stunt. His own office admits that a migrant would need to voluntarily be transported, and he can’t compel them to because, again, enforcement of our country’s immigration laws lies with the federal government, not a state.”
In a statement on Wednesday, Psaki blasted Abbott’s immigration policies, saying his “unnecessary and redundant inspections of trucks transiting ports of entry between Texas and Mexico are causing significant disruptions to the food and automobile supply chains, delaying manufacturing, impacting jobs, and raising prices for families in Texas and across the country.”