Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser is once again asking the Pentagon for help with the migrant population in the city after the federal department rejected her request last week.
Bowser requested the DC National Guard be deployed to “prevent a prolonged humanitarian crisis in our nation's capital resulting from the daily arrival of migrants.”
“We need help from our federal partners as we seek to stabilize and manage our operating environment in this crisis,” Bowser wrote in a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Aug. 11.
The DCNG would manage facilities established to house migrants, including overseeing “feeding and sanitation” as well as offering “ground support.”
Bowser said migrants that arrive in DC need support for 72 hours on average before they move on to their “final destination.”
“As Mayor since 2015, I’ve requested DC National Gaurd support nearly fifty times – to support our COVID-19 response, major events, and severe weather. Each time, these operational, apolitical requests have been granted,” Bowser wrote.
The mayor has asked for the DCNG to be deployed by Aug. 22 for a period of 90 days.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott has been busing illegal immigrants to the city since April 13.
“To help local officials — because communities are being overwhelmed by hordes of illegal immigrants who are being dropped off by the Biden Administration — Texas is providing charter buses for these illegal immigrants who have been dropped off to Washington, DC,” Abbott said while announcing the initiative, per The New York Post.
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey subsequently joined Abbott, sending the first bus of illegal immigrants to DC in May.
In August, both Bowser and New York City Mayor Eric Adams turned down an invitation from Abbott to tour the US-Mexico border.
Bowser implied the illegal immigrants being sent to DC were “tricked” into traveling.
“We have for sure called on the federal government to work across state lines to prevent people from really being tricked into getting on buses,” Bowser said on CBS’ Face the Nation. “We think they’re largely asylum seekers who are going to final destinations that are not Washington, D.C.”
The mayor added that local residents “should not pick up the tab” for the cost of social services offered to the illegal migrants.
“We really need a coordinated federal response,” she said. “We know that it’s done for refugees who come to the states from all points of the world and the same has to be done in the situation.”
Abbott said that Bowser’s request for assistance should highlight the strain the illegal immigration crisis has placed on border communities in Texas and other states.
“If the mayors of America’s most populous city and the nation’s capital are complaining about a few thousand migrants, imagine what these small border communities with more limited resources face on the frontlines,” the governor wrote in an opinion piece for Fox News that was published on Aug. 11.
“The New York City and D.C. mayors’ recent interest in this relentless crisis is a welcome departure from willful ignorance the Biden administration continues to demonstrate,” he added. “President Biden has never visited the border to understand the magnitude of the crisis he created.”
Bowser is currently running for reelection for her third term in office.
