Democrat Texas mayor backs GOP governors' busing of illegal migrants to sanctuary cities

AP Photo/Julio Cortez

Another five migrant buses arrived in New York City on Monday morning. As promised by Governors Abbott and Ducey, these buses will continue until the Biden administration secures the southern border. Yolanda Ramon, the Democrat mayor pro tem of Eagle Pass, Texas, is fine with that. People on the ground at the border, regardless of political party affiliation, know that desperate times call for desperate measures.

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In case anyone is falling for the narrative put forth by other Democrats that the migrants are being tricked or forced to get on a bus and go where they don’t want to go, Mayor Ramon said it’s all malarkey. The illegal migrants being bused to sanctuary cities want to go further north. “Of course they know where they’re going, otherwise they wouldn’t be going,” she said.

There have been more than 10,000 illegal migrants bused to sanctuary cities from Texas and Arizona. Florida Governor DeSantis is beginning to do the same. Buses or planes arriving in blue cities certainly get the attention they are meant to get.

Yolanda Ramon, mayor pro-tem of Eagle Pass, Texas, said migrants she’s met who have crossed into the US are often just looking for get further away from the border and would appreciate the help getting there.

She told Fox News she agrees with moves by Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to move migrants to so-called sanctuary cities including New York and Chicago, as well as ritzy and woke Martha’s Vineyard.

She also said they often are unaware of how far other cities are once they arrive in the country, which is why they’re often ready to take up offers of free transportation to northern cities.

‘I can tell you one thing, they’re not being lied to. You run into them at the gas station, they’ll tell you I just want to go somewhere. I just want to go further up north,’ Ramon said.

‘They don’t even know where they’re at sometimes,’ she continued. ‘They’ll ask how far is San Antonio? How far is Houston? How far is New York?’

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If you watch FNC, you know that Eagle Pass is the new epicenter of the illegal migrant crisis. Every day a Fox reporter is there filming the flood of migrants crossing the Rio Grande River into Texas. They know that once they make it to the Texas shore, they will be processed and allowed to stay. The residents of Eagle Pass are left to fend for themselves when it comes to providing housing, food, and medical care for the migrants. The Biden administration turns a blind eye to their open border. Border communities simply don’t have the resources to manage all those who are crossing the river.

Someone needs to remind Sleepy Joe that border control and illegal immigration is a federal issue, a federal responsibility, not a state responsibility. Ramon said that illegal immigration is the most pressing issue Eagle Pass has to deal with.

Ramon called the situation ‘comical,’ adding there is no doubt that illegal immigrants ‘know where they’re going’ when they’re offered rides to those cities.

She said immigrants are likely thinking, ‘You know what, if I don’t have to walk 200 miles to San Antonio, and I can get on a bus and that bus will take me closer to where I want to go to, let me get on that bus.’

She’s right. The illegal migrants are being given free transportation to their final destination, or at least much closer to that destination. The migrants aren’t coming to live in Texas, they are coming to live in the United States. It’s a sweet deal for them.

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President Unity has chosen to divide rather than unite the country, even on matters of national security. The humanitarian crisis on the southern border is also a national security crisis. Immigrants are crossing the border from over 160 countries all around the world. There is no proper vetting happening into their background. In the first 11 months of Fiscal Year 2022, 78 migrants have been apprehended who are listed on the Terrorist Screening Dataset (Watchlist). That number sounds small but it is three times more than the last four years’ apprehensions of potential terrorists combined. Is the Biden administration willing to wait for something catastrophic to happen before it finally takes border security seriously? It looks like its a gamble that they are willing to take.

El Paso County Judge candidate Guadalupe Giner says local officials are using taxpayer dollars to ‘process federal failures’. She sounded off about the need to secure the border. She is running as an independent candidate.

“The federal government must secure our border,” said Guadalupe Giner, who is running as an Independent. “They put this burden on El Paso County. And for whatever reason, the county has decided to open a processing center.”

The El Paso County Commissioners Court approved a $6.8 million contract in September to open a new migrant support center near the airport. It will be similar to the city-operated Migrant Welcome Center, which currently helps up to 400 migrants a day coordinate travel to other cities, putting many on buses to New York City or Chicago.

“We’re taking money out of local taxpayer hands and putting it into something that the federal government should be paying for,” Giner told Fox News.

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She’s right. Why should El Paso taxpayers be stuck with the costs of providing for illegal migrants who wind up in their city? Even if FEMA reimburses El Paso for the cost of its processing center, the city has to pay costs upfront and wait for reimbursement.

El Paso County Chief Administrator Betsy Keller said in a County Commissioners Court meeting Sept. 19 that the county expects to “receive all funding through FEMA” for the processing center. But the county will have to pay upfront because FEMA reimburses on a quarterly basis, Keller said.

“If at any point those funds are no longer available, we would immediately come back and notify the court and work to draw down our operations if that’s what the court wants,” she said.

Quarterly payments from FEMA. What could go wrong? We know how slowly the federal bureaucracy works. People in border states are fed up. Illegal immigration is a top issue in the midterm elections, especially in border states. South Texas, which has historically been a Democrat stronghold, now finds a shift happening. Residents are embracing the message of conservative candidates and the Biden border crisis weighs heavily in their decision-making process.

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Ed Morrissey 12:40 PM | November 21, 2024
David Strom 11:20 AM | November 21, 2024
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