WASHINGTON (NewsNation) — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security reportedly plans to bus migrants to cities hours away from the southern border, as communities neighboring Mexico struggle to deal with the huge increase in illegal migration.
Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas) is warning that the Biden administration plans to bus migrants from the U.S.-Mexico border to American towns to help deal with the record-breaking influx of migrants.
The southern border is seeing the largest wave of migration in decades, with more than 8,000 border crossings a day for months. Migrants were stopped 239,416 times in May, up 2% from 235,478 in April and up 33% from 180,597 in May 2021, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported.
CBP has processed more than 1.5 million border crossings in the fiscal year 2022, which will end at the end of September.
Pfluger sent a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas asking for more information about a potential policy he says law enforcement in San Angelo, Texas made him aware of saying CBP staff is scouting locations to bus migrants.
He’s asking a number of questions of Mayorkas, writing, “The locality has not volunteered for this mission, nor are they responsible for the burdens of the border crisis … the local community I represent is rightfully concerned.”
The rumored plan would be just the latest example of DHS relocating migrants who have been apprehended near the southern border. NewsNation has been tracking migrant charter flights for months.
Those flights are paid for by the federal government and take migrants, mostly unaccompanied minors, to various CBP facilities around the country. NewsNation tracked flights from El Paso, Texas to Jacksonville, Florida, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and Westchester, New York.
DHS and the Biden administration are not on the record about whether it is exploring a new policy to bus migrants into American towns.
The reported plans come after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott began executing his own border initiative.
Abbott has directed a reported 65 buses with more than 2,000 migrants to be sent to Washington, D.C. It’s his way of responding to what he calls President Joe Biden’s “lackluster leadership” at the border and protecting Texans from migrants.
