Politicians don't bother visiting southern border: Border union official
National Border Patrol Council Vice President Art Del Cueto joins 'Your World' to respond to claims from critics that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott must house illegal immigrants.
GOP governors have started facing blame and backlash from media outlets for Democrat-led cities now struggling with illegal immigrants.
Although the ongoing border crisis has been linked to President Joe Biden’s immigration policies, some mainstream sources have been ignoring Biden’s role in favor of attacking Govs. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, and Doug Ducey, R-Ariz., for busing migrants out of their states.
On Thursday, the New York Times described the crises faced by New York City and Washington, D.C. as "G.O.P. Governors Cause Havoc by Busing Migrants to East Coast." Although the piece acknowledged border cities in Texas and Arizona being overwhelmed with illegal immigrants, most of the article featured critics claiming Abbott and Ducey are treating migrants as a "political tool."
"This is a crisis created by Republican leaders in other states, however, unfortunately it’s fallen on the mayor to allocate resources locally," D.C. City Council member Brianne Nadeau said.
Govs. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, and Doug Ducey, R-Ariz. (Photo by Lynda M. Gonzalez-Pool/Getty Images David Wallace/The Arizona Republic via USA TODAY NETWORK)
One day earlier, Vanity Fair also suggested that the Republican governors "successfully created a migrant crisis" in the northern states. Contributor Eric Lutz was less sympathetic towards Abbott and Ducey, reminding readers that Abbott is currently under investigation by the Department of Justice for allegedly violating civil rights with his border security policies.
"In any case, the GOP governors are exploiting migrants to make a political point about federal immigration policy under President Joe Biden, shifting a humanitarian crisis at the border to the nation’s capital," Lutz wrote.
He added, "Migrants, in short, are caught between the inhumane border posturing of Abbott and Ducey and the inaction of leaders in Washington."
MSNBC blogger Ja’han Jones was especially critical of Abbott in a Tuesday post on "The ReidOut Blog."
A fourth migrant bus from Texas arrived in Washington, D.C., near the U.S. Capitol, Saturday, April 16, 2022. (Caitlin McFall/Fox News Digital)
"But Abbott’s plan to bus migrants from the Texas-Mexico border to places run by Democrats (like New York and Washington, D.C.) is arguably his worst of all. It's a plan that's also been adopted by Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey. It’s cruel, a tremendous waste of money, and rests on dubious legal reasoning," Jones wrote.
Jones also accused Abbott of intentionally creating chaos on the border to "ride a wave of right-wing anger to re-election."
The Washington Post kicked the sentiment off in a perspective on July 14, several months after Abbott began sending migrants out of state. Columnist Petula Dvorak called the migrant buses "a cruel, political stunt" that has devolved into "relentless, inhumane cruelty."
"All this stunt did is underscore how little our leaders want to help the next generation of Americans, to welcome the new immigrants the way their grandparents and great-grandparents were welcomed," Dvorak wrote.
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Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has called on the federal government to assist with the homelessness crisis exasperated by illegal immigrants. (Brian Stukes/Getty Images)
Later, on July 26, the Washington Post editorial board called out Democratic Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser for failing to properly handle the illegal immigration crisis in her own city. However, the piece did not reference Biden’s border policies as a factor and similarly called Abbott and Ducey’s actions a "political stunt."
"Mr. Abbott and Mr. Ducey hope to cause trouble, to make it seem as though migrants inevitably lead to chaos and thus compel the federal government to pass more draconian border policies," the editorial board wrote.
As New York City and Washington D.C. called for federal assistance in dealing with an influx of migrants, the White House has continued to call out the Republican governors for using illegal immigrants as "political tools."
"As we have said repeatedly, Republican governors using desperate migrants as political tools is shameful and it is wrong," a White House official told Fox News Digital on Thursday.
Back on July 17, Mayor Bowser also suggested that illegal immigrants were being "tricked" onto buses while appearing on CBS’ "Face the Nation."
A group of migrants were bused from Texas to Washington, D.C., where they were dropped off blocks from the U.S. Capitol on April 13, 2022. (Fox News)
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"We have for sure called on the federal government to work across state lines to prevent people from really being tricked into getting on buses. We think they’re largely asylum seekers who are going to final destinations that are not Washington, D.C. I worked with the White House to make sure that FEMA provided a grant to a local organization that is providing services to folks. I fear that they’re being tricked into nationwide bus trips when their final destinations are places all over the United States of America," Bowser said.
Fox News’ Joseph Wulfsohn, Adam Shaw and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.