Discord sown over migrants transport

WASHINGTON－Discord between Republicans and Democrats is exploding in the United States over migrants sent from the country's southern border states to cities in the northeast.

Two buses from Texas dropped off over 100 migrants outside Vice-President Kamala Harris' residence at the US Naval Observatory in Washington, DC, on Thursday morning.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, who has chartered buses to transport migrants from Texas to the US capital since April, said the latest group came from Colombia, Cuba, Guyana, Nicaragua, Panama and Venezuela.

Abbott accused US President Joe Biden and Harris of "ignoring and denying the historic crisis at our southern border, which has endangered and overwhelmed Texas communities for almost two years".

Biden criticized Abbott and other Republican governors on Thursday evening over the relocation of migrants, saying they are "playing politics with human beings, using them as props".

"What they're doing is simply wrong," Biden told attendees at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute gala. "It's reckless. And we have a process in place to manage migrants at the border."

'Busing strategy'

Abbott added New York City and Chicago as additional drop-off locations last month. His "busing strategy" has sent over 10,000 migrants to what Republicans call "sanctuary cities".

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey made a similar move and bused thousands of migrants to states and cities run by Democrats over the past few months.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, another Republican, sent two planes of migrants to Martha's Vineyard, an island in Massachusetts, on Wednesday.

"In Florida, we take what is happening at the southern border seriously," DeSantis tweeted Thursday. "We are not a sanctuary state, and we will gladly facilitate the transport of illegal immigrants to sanctuary jurisdictions."

At a news conference in Daytona Beach on Friday, DeSantis blamed Biden for what he portrayed as a failure to stop migrants from crossing the US-Mexico border.

Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker announced on Friday a new shelter at Joint Base Cape Cod for the 50 migrants who arrived in Martha's Vineyard.

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren took a shot at DeSantis over the flights of migrants to Martha's Vineyard, tweeting on Thursday that "exploiting vulnerable people for political stunts is repulsive and cruel".

California's Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom and Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried have suggested separately that they would ask the Department of Justice to look into DeSantis over the migrants sent to Massachusetts.

Federal agents have made about 1.82 million arrests at the US southern border so far this fiscal year, according to figures issued by the Customs and Border Protection last month.

Xinhua - Agencies