Greg Abbott is the source of a dilemma for Chicago and New York mayors as well as Muriel Bowser of Washington, DC.
Texas has been overburdened as a result of the 100,000 illegal immigrants that U.S. border agents release into states that border Mexico each month. President Joe Biden’s wave of illegal immigrants was bused to self-declared “sanctuary cities” including Chicago, New York, and Washington, DC by Mr. Abbott at the beginning of this summer, but not all of it. These cities, as well as the progressives in charge of them, have vowed to welcome all “migrants,” whether they are documented or not, and they are refusing to work with federal immigration authorities. When the “migrants” they have sworn to protect finally arrive, they appear less enthused.
These communities haven’t traveled a single mile in the boots of Americans living close to the country’s southern border. Since talk is cheap and other progressives can buy votes and money, it worked politically.
Outraged by the Biden administration’s failure to address the massive influx of illegal immigrants into his state, Mr. Abbott earlier this year charged Texas law enforcement and the National Guard with upholding the rule of law while Mr. Biden refused to. The protection that the Federales would not offer was something that Texans were ready to pay for a second time. As part of what Mr. Abbott nicknamed “Operation Lone Star,” some 300,000 illegal immigrants had been detained by late July. 17,000 people were detained on felony charges, 335 million doses of fentanyl were recovered from drug smuggling “migrants,” and many were deported back to their original places of origin.
In order to highlight the gravity of the issue, Mr. Abbott said that Texas will charter buses to transport some of these “migrants” to more hospitable locations… like Chicago, New York, and Washington. He thought that by doing this, the issues Texas and other border states confront would become more prominent and pressure would be applied to the Biden Administration to act to stop the influx of immigrants into these areas.
Since then, between 7,000–8,000 illegal immigrants have disembarked at Union Station in downtown Washington, D.C., sending Mayor Muriel Bowser on the prowl. Assuring everyone that the city would welcome and be able to handle the new immigrants, she started by criticizing Mr. Abbott for failing to cooperate with her. The quantity of people transported by bus to Washington amounts to just 7% of those with whom Texas must deal on a monthly basis, yet Ms. Bowser immediately sought extra federal funding to cover her expenses. Since then, she has repeatedly called for additional funding, requested troops from the Pentagon to assist her in managing the “crisis,” and proclaimed a “public health emergency” as a result of the inflow.
Officials from the Biden administration have flatly refused to refer to the massive influx of migrants crossing the border as a “crisis” and have turned down Ms. Bowser’s request for funding or reinforcements. Perhaps setting a precedent by granting more money to Washington would lead to further requests from Texas’ hundreds of cities and towns and other communities throughout the nation that are facing comparable issues.
Just a few weeks after Operation Lone Star buses arrived in Chicago, the mayor of our third-largest city, Lori Lightfoot, who is known for her exaggeration, attacked Mr. Abbott as a racist monster wholly devoid of “Christian principles” and even accused him of being “unpatriotic.” When Chicagoans discovered that “welcomed” migrants are being loaded onto city-owned buses and dumped in Republican-run suburban localities in the dead of night, she was forced to drop her complaint that the migrants were being mistreated by being shuttled off to her city without preparing her and her minions to receive them.
Then there is Eric Adams of New York City, who, like Ms. Lightfoot, blasted Mr. Abbott as “anti-American” and dispatched a “fact-finding team” to Texas to find out how the Texas governor was defending the “horrific” transportation of illegals to his sanctuary city. Oh, and Mr. Adams insisted that the federal government provide funding, just like Ms. Bowser and Ms. Lightfoot, so that New York could be as hospitable as he had promised.
Although the good mayor did not travel to Texas with his fact-finders, Mr. Abbott asked Mr. Adams to come and witness for himself what a mess the Biden Administration had made of the border. Mr. Adams declined, saying he was considering sending a couple busloads of New Yorkers south for a different cause—to run a campaign against Mr. Abbott.
Mr. Abbott ought to be that lucky. According to a recent Dallas Daily News survey, just 34% of Texans favor Biden’s strategy, while 51% of people in the state back their governor’s border policy. Therefore, it is understandable why Mr. Abbott’s response to Mr. Adam’s threat was so prompt. He said, “Bring ’em on.”
