Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser has requested that the D.C. National Guard be activated indefinitely to respond to migrant buses arriving in the district, according to reports.
The request also seeks permission to use the D.C. Armory, a multipurpose arena located east of the Capitol Building, as a processing center, as more than 150 buses traveling from Arizona and Texas have transported nearly 4,000 migrants to the nation’s capital over the past three months. Bowser and the D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency initially sent letters to the Office of the Secretary of Defense in a letter on July 19 and to President Joe Biden on July 22. Neither letter has received an answer, according to NBC.
BREAKING: DC @MayorBowser requests @DCNationalGuard activated indefinitely to help migrant busses arriving in DC. Calling it a “humanitarian crisis” that has reached a “tipping point” with 4,000 migrants so far. Requesting DC Armory be used as processing center. @nbcwashington
— Mark Segraves (@SegravesNBC4) July 28, 2022
“The pace of arriving buses and the volume of arrivals have reached tipping points,” Bowser wrote. “Our collective response and service efforts have now become overwhelmed. … Tragically, many families arrive in Washington, DC with nowhere to go, or they remain in limbo seeking onward destinations across the United States.”
Since mid-April, more than 125 buses have transported 4,800 migrants from Texas border communities — such as the Rio Grande Valley, Del Rio, Uvalde, and Eagle Pass — nearly 2,000 miles to Washington. Gov. Doug Ducey (R-AZ) commenced a similar initiative in mid-May and has had 27 buses carrying more than 1,000 passengers from the border to D.C. in that time, according to spokeswoman Morgan Carr.
However, D.C. officials such as Bowser have decried the move, claiming immigrants are being “tricked” into traveling farther away from their intended destinations.
“With pledges from Texas and Arizona to continue these abhorrent operations indefinitely, the situation is dire, and we consider this a humanitarian crisis — one that could overwhelm our social support network without immediate and sustained federal intervention,” Bowser wrote.
A spokeswoman for Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) drew a connection between Washington’s latest move and how 10,000 of Texas’s own National Guard and state troopers have been deployed to assist with border security for the past year.
“Washington, D.C. finally understands what Texans have been dealing with every single day, as our communities are overrun and overwhelmed by thousands of illegal immigrants thanks to President Biden’s open border policies,” Abbott spokeswoman Renae Eze wrote in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “If the mayor wants a solution to this crisis, she should call on President Biden to take immediate action to secure the border — something he has failed to do.”
The situation in Washington does not compare to the “true ongoing humanitarian crisis” on the southern border, Eze said.
Because immigration is a federal issue, Bowser argued, the federal government must provide “immediate federal assistance.” As a result, the mayor requested that the Office of the Secretary of Defense initiate a Joint Reception, Staging, Onward Movement, and Integration mission that would provide 150 personnel to the district to transport migrants to a temporary processing center at the D.C. Armory.
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Once migrants are received at the armory, the mission would seek to help them on their “eventual movement to their final destinations,” Bowser wrote. As part of the mission, D.C. National Guard members should not be armed, the mayor said, as they won’t be participating in domestic surveillance or law enforcement activities.
“This mission would begin as soon as possible and continue indefinitely until the city relieves them,” she said. “To be clear, I recognize the magnitude of this request. But the Governors of Texas and Arizona are making a political statement to the federal government, and instead, their actions are having direct impacts on city and regional resources in ways that are unsustainable.”
