In two years, Texas has bused more than 119,000 people to Democrat-led cities, shifting both migration patterns and the debate over immigration. The list of cities keeps expanding.
The autumn of 2021 delivered a shock to the state of Texas. More than 9,000 migrants crossed the border on a September day into the town of Del Rio and huddled in a tent camp under a bridge. Thousands more came later that week from countries all over the world, challenging the town’s ability to handle them.
The following spring, Texas opened a new frontier of its own. On April 13, a bus pulled into Union Station in Washington, D.C., carrying 24 migrants who had been offered a free ride from the border city of Eagle Pass, Texas, chartered by the state’s Division of Emergency Management. More buses arrived in the capital over the next several days.
Washington’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, suggested that many of the migrants had been “tricked” into riding the buses by the Texas governor, Greg Abbott. The White House called it a “political stunt.”