Special to the AFRO,
and Deborah Bailey, AFRO D.C. Editor
The District’s long-stated support of immigrants’ rights is being tested as an influx of more than 7,000 migrants from Texas and Arizona have arrived by busload each week this summer.
Faced with the conundrum of accommodating the flood of migrants who are being bused into the City several times per week by the Governors of Texas and Arizona, Mayor Muriel Bowser has renewed her call for a “federal response” to manage what she called a “humanitarian crisis” and encouraged the migrants to move to other destinations.
Texas Governor, Greg Abbott began busing migrants who cross the southern U.S. border between Texas and Mexico daily up to Washington, D.C. in April. The busloads that have been coming into Washington and other Northeast cities like New York are part of a political stunt protesting the Biden Administration’s reversal of Title 42, a federal health authority used by the Trump Administration to reduce the flow of new migrants across the U.S. southern border.
To date, Governor Abbott has bused over 6,000 migrants into the District, while Arizona Governor, Doug Ducey, has sent over 1,000. Both governors have vowed to continue sending busloads of migrants to D.C. and recently extended the transfer of migrants from their states to New York City.
Citing the overloading of the District’s social services due to the migrant influx, Mayor Muriel Bowser wrote to United States Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, on July 19, asking for a “national response.”
Bowser said that the city’s “homeless services system is already under great strain; and tragically, many families arrive in Washington, D.C. with nowhere to go, or they remain in limbo seeking onward destinations across the United States.”
The Mayor asked for the deployment of the D.C. National Guard with a mission that would include facilitating the migrants’ in-processing and their “eventual onward movement to other destinations.”
Austin turned down Bowser’s original request, indicating that “providing this support would negatively impact the readiness of the DCNG and have negative effects on the organization and members.”
Undeterred, Bowser renewed her request to the Pentagon for support from the D.C. National Guard on August 11.
“I have been honored to work with the men and women of the D.C. National Guard many times and today we renewed our request for their assistance,” Bowser said in a statement on Twitter. In her second request, Bowser stated that her previous “open-ended” appeal for assistance from the D.C. National Guard would begin on Aug. 22 and be evaluated at the start of December.
“We need help from our federal partners as we seek to stabilize and manage our operating environment in this critical moment,” Bowser appealed to Secretary Austin. “Each time, these operational, apolitical requests have been granted,” Bowser’s letter stated.
The District of Columbia has long been a haven for immigrants, which made up approximately 14 percent of its population (28 percent of these were undocumented immigrants) and 17 percent of its labor force in 2018. These immigrants have historically competed for employment, housing, and health care in minority communities, but Bowser has made clear that with the ongoing flood of migrants into D.C., the City’s residents retain priority in the placement of the homeless within its shelters.
“We have to be very focused on working with D.C. residents who have a right to shelter,” Bowser said.
Members of the District’s Government, while urging the Mayor to provide greater assistance to the migrants, have also voiced concern that the migrants might overwhelm the City’s social services infrastructure.
“We are already hearing that absent any other direction or plan from the D.C. Government, migrants are being directed to existing District systems and resources intended for District residents. Without action, there is a risk of these systems being overwhelmed,” wrote ten Councilmembers, including Brianne Nadeau, Vincent Gray, and Chairman Phil Mendelson, in a letter to Bowser in July.
The Mayor’s request for federal leadership in managing the migrant influx and encouraging the migrants to move on to other destinations marks a stark departure from her prior stance on migration.
In January 2018, at the beginning of her second term in office, Bowser proclaimed “Washington is a Sanctuary City. We celebrate diversity and respect all DC residents regardless of immigration status.”
In their July letter, City Council members wrote “If the District truly is a sanctuary city, we must stand up against the hateful rhetoric of Abbott and provide a dignified welcome to the arriving migrants.”
The conundrum in which the City finds itself with the influx of immigrants will indeed require greater federal intervention and a closer partnership with local government and the non-profit community. The mass bussing of immigrants from other parts of the United States into D.C. arrives when the District is facing a monkeypox health emergency and the continued COVID-19 pandemic.
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