Two busloads of migrants had been additionally despatched to U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’s residence in September.

Saul Loeb/AFP through Getty Images

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Saul Loeb/AFP through Getty Images

Two busloads of migrants had been additionally despatched to U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’s residence in September.

Saul Loeb/AFP through Getty Images

Several busloads of migrants had been dropped off on the Washington, D.C., residence of Vice President Kamala Harris on Christmas Eve — apparently the newest in an escalating battle between state officers and the Biden administration over the nation’s immigration coverage.

A complete of three busloads of migrants arrived on the Naval Observatory, the place Harris lives, on Saturday night. The Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network, a neighborhood grassroots group, met the migrants, who had been inadequately dressed for the freezing temperature, in accordance with the station.

Earlier this yr, some state governors started sending buses of migrants to the nation’s capital, after the Biden administration attempted to lift a pandemic-era policy that let the U.S. deny entry to immigrants.

At least one governor from these states, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, stated his state is purposefully busing migrants to sanctuary cities, the place regulation enforcement are discouraged from deporting immigrants.

Amy Fischer, an organizer with the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network, told NPR’s All Things Considered on Sunday that Abbott’s actions had been “rooted in racism and xenophobia.”

“At the end of the day, everybody who arrived here last night was able to get free transportation, on a charter bus, that got them closer to their final destination,” she stated.

In a statement in April, U.S. Customs & Border Protection Commissioner Chris Magnus criticized Abbott’s determination to “move migrants without adequately coordinating with the federal government and local border communities.”

Two earlier busloads of migrants arrived at Harris’ residence in September, following an interview in which Harris said the border was secure.

“The border is secure, but we also have a broken immigration system, particularly over the last four years before we came in, and it needs to be fixed,” Harris told NBC’s Meet the Press in a Sept. 11 interview.

As of Dec. 22, greater than 8,700 migrants have been bused to Washington, D.C., from the Texas border, and one other mixed have been despatched to six,520 to New York, Chicago and Philadelphia, according to the Texas Governor’s office.

“This terrible crisis for border communities in Texas is a catastrophe of your own making,” Abbott wrote in a letter to the president on Dec. 20. “These communities and the state are ill-equipped to do the job assigned to the federal government – house the thousands of migrants flooding into the country every day. With perilous temperatures moving into the area, many of these migrants are at risk of freezing to death on city streets.”