Reportedly Texas has lined up more than 900 buses for the task. Given the incredible crush of illegals we’re expecting at the border once Title 42 lifts, is that enough? Last week the Times reported that DHS has “contingency plans for managing as many as 18,000 encounters a day at the border.” Eighteen thousand per day for the next six months would mean more than three million encounters in the second half of 2022 alone. The current record for an entire year is 1.7 million, Byron York noted recently.

Those bus drivers are going to be awfully tired with all of the nonstop round trips they’ll be making between Texas and D.C.

I’m not 100 percent sure this is legal but I am 100 percent sure that it’s good politics, particularly for a governor who’s up for reelection this year.

BREAKING: Texas Governor Greg Abbott says he is sending illegal aliens to the U.S. Capitol:

“Texas is providing charter buses to send these illegal immigrants, who have been dropped off by the Biden administration, to Washington D.C." pic.twitter.com/fJWxqzGj9P

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) April 6, 2022

Dumping the consequences of Biden’s policy into his lap in Washington is the buzziest part of Abbott’s plan for trying to control the massive numbers of immigrants expected, but there’s more:

Abbott also said Wednesday the Department of Public Safety will immediately begin enhanced safety inspections of commercial vehicles coming through the Mexico border into Texas because human smugglers are known to use commercial trucks to transport people into the country. Abbott acknowledged that the move will “dramatically slow” traffic at the Texas border. Mexico is one of state’s largest trading partner and does hundreds of billions of dollars in trade with Texas every year.

Abbott also said the state will create boat blockades on the Rio Grande to deter migrants and install concertina wire, a type of barbed or razor wire, in low-river crossings on the river that are high-traffic areas.

The mood among centrist Democrats as Biden prepares to end the policy allowing for immediate expulsion of migrants feels roughly the same as the scene in “Ghostbusters” where the EPA shuts down the containment machine. Joe Manchin is horrified. Arizonans Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly, the latter of whom is also up for reelection in November, issued a joint statement denouncing the plan. Jon Tester is normally a good soldier for his party despite his centrist tendencies and has the luxury of representing a state located far from the southern border, but he can see this political trainwreck coming too:

I'm strongly opposed to the Administration's decision to let Title 42 expire next month—which will only add to the strain on our broken immigration system.

I'm urging Sec. Mayorkas to provide a comprehensive plan to address the increased security needed when Title 42 expires. pic.twitter.com/NayQCfBuN5

— Senator Jon Tester (@SenatorTester) April 5, 2022

Catherine Cortez Masto is up for reelection in Nevada, a state with a large and influential Hispanic minority. But she seems to have learned the lesson from Trump’s gains with Hispanics in 2020 that supporting open borders isn’t necessarily the path to those voters’ hearts. So she’s also against ending Title 42, telling Politico, “This is the wrong way to do this and it will leave the administration unprepared for a surge at the border. We should be working to fix our immigration system by investing in border security and treating immigrant families with dignity. Instead, the administration is acting without a detailed plan.”

For cripes sake, even a liberal as stalwart as Raphael Warnock knows this is a potential campaign-killer in a state as purple as Georgia:

Raphael Warnock, who is up for re-election, told me “this is the wrong time” for the Biden administration to lift the Title 42 policy at the border. “We have not seen a detailed plan from the administration.”

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) April 4, 2022

Alejandro Mayorkas made a fair point this week when he reminded unhappy Democrats that Title 42 is a public health policy, not an immigration policy, and therefore can’t be invoked without cause. Now that the pandemic is winding down, the public health justification for keeping the border sealed is winding down too. Congress could, of course, pass a law overruling the CDC and extending the policy indefinitely. Or, better yet, it could dispense with the “public health” rationale and just pass a law allowing DHS to turn immigrants away summarily, with asylum applicants made to wait in Mexico until their petition is adjudicated.

But the left would have conniptions if Democrats did that, so they won’t. That’s the price of a broad coalition for Biden. If he comes up with a way to keep Title 42 in place, he risks a progressive boycott of the midterms. If he allows it to lapse, he risks moderate Democrats getting annihilated by swing voters.

It’s looking like a bloodbath in November either way.

One more point about Abbott’s new policy, though. How many illegals will end up being dumped at the Capitol if their trip to Washington is … voluntary?

Press release from Abbott's office says state will offer charters buses * and flights* to send migrants to D.C. Also says the transportation would have to be VOLUNTARY on the part of the migrants. A little different from the message of the press conference… https://t.co/3C5z6SJZP1

— James Barragán 🌟 (@James_Barragan) April 6, 2022

Sheesh. I’ll leave you with Ron DeSantis, getting in on the political action about busing illegals to other states.

In yet another display of political theater, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) claims he will bus undocumented immigrants to Biden’s home state:

“If Biden is dumping people, which he has dumped people … we now have money where we can reroute them to sanctuary states like Delaware.” pic.twitter.com/jvhOk2jbk6

— The Recount (@therecount) April 6, 2022