Tipsheet

NYT: Wow, That's a Lot of Illegal Immigrants in the Northeast

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  August 05, 2022 1:25 PM

When Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced his plan to start busing illegal immigrants detained at the southern border to Washington, DC in the spring, I thought it was a stunt.  A clever stunt, which I supported, but still a stunt.  I never imagined it would be quite this effective, this quickly.  He and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey have drawn angry criticisms from the mayors of New York City and DC, as their cities struggle to handle the influx of a minuscule fraction of what border communities have been endlessly experiencing for well over a year under the Biden administration's disastrous policies.  It's remarkable to watch anti-enforcement progressives squeal after getting just a taste of the border crisis in their own backyards.  They can blame Republicans all they want -- which is the inane White House line -- but the obvious point being made is so obvious that few people will miss it:


People like Mayor Bowser are very happy to preen on issues like this, celebrate their own supposed 'compassion,' and assail pro-enforcement conservatives as heartless bigots.  But they also very much would like to have the consequences of their pro-illegal immigration policies and rhetoric to remain out of sight and out of mind.  For them, personally.  Once they're confronted with the problem, it's suddenly an unacceptable strain on resources, as New York Mayor Eric Adams has recently complained.  The border crisis has been raging out of control throughout the Biden presidency, which has incentivized millions of illegal crossings.  US officials say we are approaching one million known got-aways since the start of FY 2021.  But once a small portion of the crisis is dropped at the doorstep of liberal northeastern cities, it's "havoc" caused by Republicans, per the New York Times:

A political tactic by the governors of Texas and Arizona to offload the problems caused by record levels of migration at the border is beginning to hit home in Washington, as hundreds of undocumented migrants arriving on the governors’ free bus rides each week increasingly tax the capital’s ability to provide emergency food and housing. With no money and no family to receive them, the migrants are overwhelming immigrant nonprofits and other volunteer groups, with many ending up in homeless shelters or on park benches. Five buses arrived on a recent day, spilling young men and families with nowhere to go into the streets near the Capitol...Since April, Texas has delivered more than 6,200 migrants to the nation’s capital, with Arizona dispatching an additional 1,000 since May. The influx has prompted Muriel E. Bowser, Washington’s Democratic mayor, to ask the Defense Department to send the National Guard in. The request has infuriated organizations that have been assisting the migrants without any city support...

Eric Adams, mayor of New York City, announced emergency measures on Monday to enable the city to quickly build additional shelter capacity. The mayor, also a Democrat, said the city had received 4,000 asylum seekers since May, fueling a 10 percent growth in the homeless population, with about 100 new arrivals each day. Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas and Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona, both Republicans, blame President Biden for record numbers of migrants crossing the southern border. Cities along the border in Texas and Arizona have at times been overwhelmed with a surge in unauthorized border crossings that peaked under the Biden administration, which has sought to unravel some of the harsh border restrictions imposed by former President Donald J. Trump. While thousands of migrants have been swiftly expelled under a pandemic-related health order known as Title 42, thousands of others are being allowed into the country to pursue asylum claims because they cannot be returned to Mexico or their own countries. State officials in Texas and Arizona have been greeting many of the migrants after their release from U.S. Border Patrol custody, offering them free bus rides to Washington in a bid to force the federal government to take responsibility for what they say is a failed immigration system.

The realities described at the beginning of this passage are sad, but par for the course at the border.  If they're terrible and unacceptable in northeastern cities, they should be unacceptable down at the border, too.  The truth is that many progressives have no problem with the crisis -- until the crisis starts to impact them, where they live.  That is the whole point of what Abbott and Ducey are doing.  Bowser is requesting national guard intervention, enraging pro-illegal immigration activists.  Homelessness in DC and New York is spiking due to Biden's policies, now that a very small slice of those outcomes are being delivered to those cities.  Border communities have not been overwhelmed "at times" by the "surge in unauthorized border crossings."  They've been consistently slammed, month after month, and a lot of powerful people in politics and media simply haven't cared.

Federal Democrats fight states' efforts to engage in border and interior enforcement, then also oppose the feds doing the job in a serious and effective manner.  It's all politics to them.  Perhaps the issue will become less theoretical and purely political to them when it's staring them in the face.  And Republicans "say" the immigration system is failed because it is failed, evidenced by a string of record-shattering months.  Bowser and Adams keep attacking border governors because they have no other talking points available to them.  And they've refused Abbott's invitation to come see the border for themselves.  God forbid they learn something.  And thus the battle has escalated:

The state of Texas has expanded its operation of busing illegal immigrants released at the border, adding New York City to its list of destinations in an effort to put pressure on sanctuary city Democrats — especially Mayor Eric Adams. Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) announced Friday that the first bus had pulled into the borough of Manhattan. Abbott, seeking a third term in November, said the addition of the bus route to the existing one to Washington is partly political and partly logistical. "Because of President Biden’s continued refusal to acknowledge the crisis caused by his open border policies, the State of Texas has had to take unprecedented action to keep our communities safe," Abbott said in a statement. "In addition to Washington, D.C., New York City is the ideal destination for these migrants, who can receive the abundance of city services and housing that Mayor Eric Adams has boasted about within the sanctuary city." "I hope he follows through on his promise of welcoming all migrants with open arms so that our overrun and overwhelmed border towns can find relief," Abbott said. While no buses have gone to New York until now, Adams inaccurately claimed in late July that Texas and Arizona were busing migrants into his city, which is a sanctuary zone and is viewed by illegal immigrants as a safe place to reside because local police do not cooperate with federal immigration police.

Enjoy, Mayor Adams.  You asked for this.  Quite frankly, 'sanctuary cities' deserve to have this massive problem dropped directly within their borders. It's easy to posture and virtue signal. It's much harder to deal with the real-world crisis such posturing and signaling creates.  Anti-enforcement and pro-open borders leftists consider themselves exquisitely compassionate and enlightened -- but it is not just dangerous and naive, but downright cruel, to continue to actively incentivize this human tragedy:


I'll leave you with just a few harrowing reminders of the public safety and public health threats posed by Biden's border crisis.  And these are just a handful of examples that we know about, excluding all the known and unknown got-aways, in human and other forms of smuggling:

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