(The Hill) – Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) confirmed on Thursday that the first bus of migrants has arrived in Colorado.
“Texas’ overwhelmed and overrun border communities should not have to shoulder the flood of illegal immigration due to President Biden’s reckless open border policies, like his mass catch and release without court dates or any way to track them,” Abbott said in a news release, noting that the migrants were dropped off near the Civic Center Park in Denver, Colo.
Abbott had recently bussed more migrants to Washington, D.C. on Sunday, with the group arriving at Vice President Harris’ residence.
“Until the President and his Administration step up and fulfill their constitutional duty to secure the border, the State of Texas will continue busing migrants to self-declared sanctuary cities like Denver to provide much-needed relief to our small border towns.”
The announcement comes as Abbott recently penned a letter to 49 other state governors on Tuesday, urging them to “band together” in opposition to the Biden Administration’s border management policies.
In his letter, Abbott, who called out President Biden for jeopardizing the nation’s security by ending Title 42, also called on other states to implement the Emergency Management Assistance Compact in an effort “to defend our national sovereignty and territorial integrity and send all available law enforcement personnel and resources to the Texas-Mexico border to serve alongside our thousands of Texas National Guard soldiers and Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) troopers.”
Title 42, which ended last week, was a COVID-19 policy that allowed officials to quickly expel asylum seekers at the border.
Abbott, along with other Republican governors in southern states, has been busing migrants to northern, Democratic-led cities in recent months in protest of the end of Title 42.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D), whose city has seen an influx of migrants arriving in recent months, said earlier this week that city officials are considering housing some migrants in school gyms due to the struggle to accommodate them.
Adams also eased the city’s longtime guarantee to provide shelter to all residents, beginning to bus migrants to northern counties in northern New York.