Republicans cheering Texas’ surprise buses demand alerts to states when feds move migrants

Scores of House Republicans, including a dozen from Texas, have co-sponsored a proposal requiring federal agencies to provide a week’s notice to state and local officials before sending migrants into their jurisdictions. Many of those same lawmakers, however, are now cheering governors in Texas and Florida as they surprise Democratic mayors in Washington, D.C., New York and other cities with unannounced buses and planes loaded with migrants. The apparent disconnect has prompted suggestions of hypocrisy that came up when Rep. Beth Van Duyne, R-Irving, appeared this week on CNN. “If you think it should be law that the federal government notifies the states, why shouldn’t the states be required to notify cities that they’re sending migrants?” the interviewer asked Van Duyne. “Is it politically just convenient to be against the Democratic administration and not require that of Republican governors?” Van Duyne pushed back on the idea she’s trying to have it both ways, saying border security and immigration enforcement are the federal government’s responsibilities and Democrats are in denial about the situation.

“You can’t complain that you got people coming in and not being notified, at the same time arguing that your borders are closed,” Van Duyne said. “They’re not. We do have open borders and every city now is seeing those results.” Democrats have strongly denounced the migrant bus gambit – led most prominently by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis – as political theater featuring the migrants themselves as human pawns. After migrants from Texas were dropped off earlier this month outside Vice President Kamala Harris’ official residence at the Naval Observatory in Washington, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre highlighted the lack of notice involved as evidence of the plan’s callousness. “The fact that Fox News — and not the Department of Homeland Security, the city, or local [nongovernmental organizations] — were alerted about a plan to leave migrants, including children, on the side of a busy D.C. street makes clear that this is just a cruel, premeditated political stunt,” she said.