San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Pentagon rejects plea for Guard to help migrants
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon rejected a request from the District of Columbia seeking National Guard assistance in what the mayor has called a “growing humanitarian crisis” prompted by thousands of migrants being bused to the city from two southern states.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin declined to provide Guard personnel and the use of the D.C. Armory to assist with the reception of migrants into the city, according to U.S. defense officials. Mayor Muriel Bowser said the district may send an amended, “more specific” request, adding she believes this is the first time a D.C. request for National Guard has been denied.
One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s food and shelter program has provided funding for the problem, and has indicated those funds are sufficient at this point.
Bowser, the district’s Democratic mayor, formally asked the White House last month for an open-ended deployment of 150 National Guard members per day as well as a “suitable federal location” for a mass housing and processing center, mentioning the D.C. Armory as a logical candidate.
During the spring, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, both Republicans, announced plans to send busloads of migrants to Washington, D.C., in response to President Biden’s decision to lift a pandemic-era emergency health order that restricted migrant entry numbers by denying them a chance to seek
Migrants arrive in Washington from Texas in April. Texas and Arizona have sent busloads of migrants to the nation’s capital, which the mayor calls “cruel political gamesmanship.”
asylum. The rule remains in effect under court order.
On Friday, Abbott said the first group of migrants from his state had now been bused to New York as well.
As of mid-July, about 5,200 migrants had been bused from Texas to D.C. since April. As of Aug. 3, more than 1,300 had been sent from Arizona since May. The governors call the practice a voluntary free ride —
paid for by state taxpayers — that gets migrants closer to family or support networks.
A coalition of local charitable groups has been working to feed and shelter the migrants, aided by a $1 million grant from FEMA. But organizers have been warning that both their resources and personnel were nearing exhaustion.
“This reliance on NGOs is not working and is unsustainable
— they are overwhelmed and underfunded,” Bowser said in her letter.
Bowser sharply criticized Abbott and Ducey, accusing them of “cruel political gamesmanship” and saying the pair had “decided to use desperate people to score political points.”