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The District of Columbia, Washington, asked to activate the National Guard, a military reserve corps, to attend to the undocumented migrants that authorities in Texas and Arizona have been busing in for months.
District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, announced at a press conference after receiving criticism for her inaction and urged the Biden Administration to do its part and step up to lead in what she called a “growing humanitarian crisis.”
In this regard, the mayor predicted that the number of asylum seekers arriving at the border from Mexico is expected to increase in the coming months.
The policymaker requested Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth, given that the District of Columbia is not a state. Usually, those who have the prerogative to activate the National Guard are the state governors.
In this way, the District of Columbia wants to respond to the measure implemented in early April by the governor of Texas, Republican Greg Abbott, to send undocumented immigrants to Washington DC in response to the decision of President Joe Biden’s administration to rescind a health regulation that allowed their expulsion due to the pandemic.
Later, in May, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, also a Republican, emulated the measure and began sending busloads of migrants to the capital.
Activist organizations have pointed out that migrants get on the buses voluntarily and that once they arrive in Washington DC, they are free to move wherever they want.
