Migrant families on the bus that took them from Texas to Kamala Harris’ residence this Saturday in Washington.AP
More than a hundred migrants from Texas arrived in Washington this weekend, right outside the door of Vice President Kamala Harris’ official residence. Aboard buses chartered by Texas Gov. Republican Greg Abbott, the displaced, between 110 and 130, mostly families with children, join the thousands who have arrived in cities like Washington and New York since the spring also sent by Abbott to discuss the Joe Biden Administration’s immigration policy. It is not the first time that Harris’ residence has become the final destination of involuntary migrant travel, as early as October, Abbott transferred a similar number of foreigners, mostly Venezuelans, to the residence’s doors.
Circumstances have changed this time. Adding to the polar cold front that has wreaked havoc across more than half the country, the Supreme Court has delayed repealing Title 42, a rule used by the Donald Trump administration amid the pandemic, to urgently and without the possibility of an application for deportation Asylum for border crossings, which is expected to be ended by a conservative majority in the High Court under pressure from the Republican-governed states despite a court decision to the contrary. Temperatures near 10 degrees below zero in El Paso, Texas, have turned these nights into an open-air refrigerator for asylum seekers who, despite the opening of shelters, were briefed by the volunteers on the travel plan to the federal capital city. The NGOs providing aid at the border coordinated with Washington collaborators to take in the displaced, some in just T-shirts, who were later taken to a church in the Capitol district, according to NGO SAMU First Response sources who quoted by the agency Portal.
Abbott, a harsh critic of the Biden administration, has used this political weapon or fait accompli along with other Republican governors, sending thousands of people to Democrat-run cities like Washington, New York and Chicago, which theorists are havens for immigrants and define their agencies she usually. With this charter system, the Republicans also want to fuel the national debate on the arrival of immigrants in the US. Last week, another nine buses arrived in Washington from the border, many of them Ecuadorian and Colombian, according to the above-mentioned NGO.
But democratic cities, as much as they define themselves as safe havens for foreigners, must simultaneously grapple with another growing problem brought to light by the bitter cold: how to help the thousands of homeless people, many with mental health problems Problems live on its streets. The lack of shelter spots has just been highlighted in New York by the arrival of more than 21,000 migrants since April, and the mayor, Democrat Eric Adams, has asked the federal government for material help to respond to the emergency, which could overflow The Supreme Court finally ends Title 42, the key to a near-automatic deportation.
In early October, Adams declared a state of emergency due to the massive influx of foreigners. In November, it expanded the resource network for newcomers by establishing eight information centers so asylum seekers could process their applications – the system is stretched – or get the first safe escort to move around the city (the New York City, for example, or public transport cards). In a move his critics called unpredictable, the mayor opened and closed within weeks a controversial 1,000-capacity camp on Randalls Island north of Manhattan designed to house men traveling alone. The few tenants in Randalls have been moved into a former hotel that has been converted into hostels in Midtown Manhattan. The same system used to house the homeless during the pandemic, which human rights NGOs say has proven inadequate and dysfunctional.
Amid the twin housing crises, the city council has turned to churches, temples and synagogues for help in housing asylum seekers due to the need to simultaneously care for homeless and migrants. A mayoral commissioner surveyed the city’s places of worship 10 days ago to ensure “a space, complete with bathroom and kitchen, where a family or individual can sleep at night or live temporarily.”
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The hot towels with which New York reacts to the massive influx of migrants prevent unusual dramas such as the suicides of two asylum seekers. Ten days ago, a 26-year-old Venezuelan man took his own life at a Queens animal shelter. In September, a young mother of two young children surrendered at the animal shelter where she lived in the same New York borough.
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