2 Busloads of Migrants Dropped Off Near VP Harris’ Residence

Vice President Kamala Harris listens as people speak during a meeting with civil rights and reproductive rights leaders in the Diplomatic Reception Room on the White House complex in Washington, Monday, September 12, 2022. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two buses of migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border were dropped off near Vice President Kamala Harris’ home on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory in residential Washington on Thursday morning, the latest move in a bitter political battle over the Biden administration’s immigration policies.

It wasn’t immediately clear which Republican leader had sent them. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has been busing migrants out of Texas to cities with Democratic mayors as part of a political strategy this year because he claims there are too many arrivals over the border to his state. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey also has adopted this policy, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also got in on the act recently. It was first dreamed up by former President Donald Trump.

About two dozen men and women stood outside the U.S. Naval Observatory at dawn, clutching clear plastic bags of their belongings brought with them over the border, before moving to a nearby church. Harris’ office had no immediate comment.

After migrants seeking asylum cross the U.S.-Mexico border, they spend time in a U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility along the border until they are generally released into the U.S. to wait out their cases. Republicans say Biden’s policies encourage migrants to vanish into the U.S., while Democrats argue the Trump-era policy of forcing migrants to wait out their asylum cases in Mexico was inhumane.

On Wednesday, DeSantis flew two planes of immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard, where former President Barack Obama and his family have a waterfront home. And last week, Abbott sent about 75 migrants to Chicago.