The Defense Department has rejected Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser’s request for help from the National Guard in the area to deal with the influx of migrants from Arizona and Texas — which she recently called a “humanitarian crisis,” according to multiple reports.
“After careful consideration, the Department has concluded that it is unable to comply with your request,” Pentagon Executive Secretary Kelly Bulliner Hawley wrote to Christopher Rodriguez, director of D.C.’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency, according to NBC News.
The Defense Department says the nation’s capital already has enough funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to shelter and otherwise help arriving migrants.
“I understand that a non-governmental organization, SAMU First Response, has received federal grant funding through the Emergency Food and Shelter Program from FEMA for this mission,” Holly’s letter continued.
“Specifically, this program complements the funding of humanitarian relief efforts by government and social service organizations to provide shelter and support services to families and individuals.”
A bus from Del Rio, Texas, carrying Venezuelan migrants arriving in Washington, D.C., on August 2, 2022. Photo by STEPHANIE REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s request for National Guard troops to handle the arrival of migrants was rejected by the Department of Defense.AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
The denial comes 17 days after Bowser’s July 19 request, in which she asked for 150 personnel from the D.C. National Guard each day to provide a “24/7 operation” to receive migrants as well as use the District’s weapons base Columbia or “another appropriate Federal location in the National Capital Region for a temporary processing center.
At the time, Bowser revealed that “over 4,000 people arriving on nearly 200 buses” had arrived in Washington since April, when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey pledged to put migrants on charter buses to protest immigration policies of the Biden administration.
Bowser called the arrival of migrants from Arizona and Texas a “humanitarian crisis.” Photo: STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
“Our collective response and service efforts are already overwhelmed,” Bowser pleaded.
“[O]your homeless services system is already under great strain; and tragically, many families arrive in Washington, DC with nowhere to go, or remain in limbo, searching further for destinations across the United States.
“With promises from Texas and Arizona to continue these heinous operations indefinitely, the situation is dire,” Bowser continued, “and we consider this a humanitarian crisis — one that could overwhelm our social support network without immediate and sustained federal intervention .”
The Pentagon said the District of Columbia has enough funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help the migrants. AP Photo/Patrick Semansky
In remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday, Abbott boasted that his administration has sent more than 6,500 migrants to D.C. Ducey’s office indicated last week that 33 buses from Arizona carried an estimated 1,262 migrants.
All of the migrants who have arrived on the East Coast have gone there voluntarily because they are allowed to travel within the US after being processed by Customs and Border Protection.
Typically, when migrants are released from federal custody after crossing the border and avoiding deportation, they are given documents that allow them to remain in the U.S., as well as an order to appear in immigration court when their cases can be heard.
According to Bowser, more than 4,000 migrants from the border have arrived on 200 busloads since April. Photo: STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
The Pentagon’s rejection of Bowser’s request also came on the same day that Texas officially began transporting migrants to New York.
Abbott confirmed that the first bus carrying more than 50 migrants arrived at the Port Authority bus terminal in Manhattan on Friday morning.
“Due to President Biden’s continued refusal to acknowledge the crisis caused by his open borders policy, the state of Texas has had to take unprecedented action to keep our communities safe,” Abbott said, calling the Big Apple an “ideal destination” for migrants because Mayor Eric Adams touted New York as a sanctuary city.
While Bowser and Adams lamented the influx of migrants into their cities, Abbott invited the Democratic mayors to travel to Texas to see the border crisis firsthand.
“I really wish they would [come down] because public officials across the country need to realize the extent of the chaos created by Biden’s open border policies,” Abbott told Fox News Thursday night. “They’re worried about a few thousand people coming into their communities in the last few months? Listen, in every single sector in the state of Texas, we have more than 5,000 people coming across [the border] in this sector every day.’
“We are full in the state of Texas,” the governor added. “Our communities are overcrowded and I started busing people to Washington when local officials couldn’t handle the number of people who had crossed our border.”
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