D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser declared a public emergency Thursday over the thousands of illegal immigrants that have been bussed into the District from Arizona and Texas.
She is using $10 million from the District’s reserve fund to establish a temporary Office of Migrant Services and to hire staff who can receive, feed and help the arriving migrants find a place to stay, the mayor said during a press conference.
The emergency declaration only lasts 15 days, but Ms. Bowser will introduce emergency legislation to the D.C. council to codify the new office. The mayor is also seeking reimbursement for the office from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Ms. Bowser reported that around 9,400 people have been bussed to D.C. since April by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, both Republicans. She added that most of the people who are dropped here move on to other destinations.
“We know that [the governors] are targeting Washington, D.C. not because of any particular ties that the people boarding the buses have to D.C., but they want to make a point to the federal government,” Ms. Bowser said.
She also said she believes some of the migrants are being tricked or lied to when accepting the ride to the District.
There are 94 migrant families — 348 people in total — who are currently staying in D.C. hotels on the city government’s dime, according to Ms. Bowser. She said 70 children have enrolled in D.C. public schools for this year.
While Ms. Bowser focused most of her criticism on the governors of Texas and Arizona, she also said the federal government shares responsibility for exacerbating what she described as a humanitarian crisis.
“I’m very disappointed in [the lack of National Guard assistance] and also very disappointed in not having a federal site that we can use,” Ms. Bowser said, before directing blame at “the president, the White House, and anybody else who was involved in the National Guard not being granted for the District’s humanitarian response.”
The mayor originally reached out to the Department of Defense and the White House to ask for National Guard assistance in late July.
When the Pentagon denied her open-ended request for aid, she sent a follow-up request in August for a 90-day deployment of the National Guard and to set up a processing center for migrants at the DC Armory.
Again, the Pentagon denied her request, saying that deploying the National Guard for this purpose affected the unit’s readiness, and the D.C. Armory lacked the necessary amenities to humanely receive people.