WASHINGTON — Another bus carrying asylum seekers arrived at Vice President Kamala Harris's Naval Observatory home in D.C. Thursday morning. This is at least the fourth bus of migrants dropped at Harris's residence in recent weeks. This bus arrived from Texas with 38 people on board.
The DC Council passed emergency legislation in September aimed at helping migrants who are being bussed here from Texas and Arizona.
Since April, buses from Arizona and Texas have been arriving in the nation's capital but have been dropping off migrants at the transit center Union Station.
Advocate groups told WUSA9 that they believe buses will continue dropping asylum seekers outside the Vice President's residence. They will be focusing their efforts in the Northwest location so that the migrants are not left stranded.
Volunteers on the ground say more needs to be done to help long-term, and they aren’t convinced the newly established Office of Migrant Services will do it. The legislation which created the Office of Migrant services allows the mayor $10 million in contingency funds to provide asylum seekers with temporary housing, healthcare, and other services like food and education.
But aid workers say the office will fail to provide long-term solutions, saying the legislation is worded so that it could deny immigrant residents already in D.C. access to homeless services like housing and eviction help.
RELATED: DC Council approves emergency services for migrants, five months after first bus from Texas arrived
Here are some questions and answers:
ARE MIGRANTS LEGALLY IN THE UNITED STATES?
Yes, temporarily. Tens of thousands of migrants who cross the border illegally from Mexico are released in the United States each month with notices to appear in immigration court to pursue asylum or on humanitarian parole with requirements to report regularly to immigration authorities. Migrants may seek asylum if they enter the country illegally under U.S. and international law, and U.S. authorities have broad authority to grant parole based on individual circumstances.
Migrants must keep a current address with authorities, who schedule appointments in a city with the nearest court or immigration office. They must apply separately for permission to work.
Last year, it took an average of nearly four years for asylum cases to be decided in immigration court, according to the Biden administration, leaving migrants in a legal purgatory that shields them from deportation. The backlog in immigration courts has mushroomed to more than 1.9 million cases, according to Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
To avoid massive overcrowding in detention facilities, the administration began releasing many migrants on humanitarian parole. The Border Patrol paroled nearly 250,000 migrants from August through June, including 40,151 in June, the latest figures released. In the previous seven months, it paroled only 11 migrants.
ARE THESE MIGRANTS KIDNAPPED?
Kidnapping is a high legal threshold, but migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard say they were taken there on false pretenses. Migrants sign waivers that the transportation is free and voluntary.
DeSantis used a state program in which migrants deemed “unauthorized aliens" can be moved “from Florida,” though the governor has acknowledged the flights originated in Texas.
They stopped first in Florida, before going to Martha's Vineyard, but DeSantis has not emphasized that. Instead, he maintains that the two flights were a legitimate use of funds because the migrants otherwise would have aimed to go to Florida, though he offered no evidence of that and did not say how migrants might have been vetted.
Migrants who boarded the flights told The Associated Press that a woman who approached them at a San Antonio shelter promised jobs and three months of housing in Washington, New York, Philadelphia and Boston.
DOESN'T THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION BUS AND FLY MIGRANTS AROUND THE COUNTRY?
Yes, but under different circumstances. Like earlier administrations, it transports migrants between detention facilities, often on their way to being removed from the country.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had more than 4,800 domestic flights in the last year, including 434 in August, according to Witness to the Border, a group that criticizes U.S. enforcement. The top five destinations from March to August were: Alexandria, Louisiana; Laredo, Texas; Phoenix; and Harlingen and El Paso in Texas. ICE also buses many migrants.
The Department of Health and Human Services transports unaccompanied children to “sponsors,” who are often family, or child-only detention facilities.
DID ANYONE ASK FOR THIS?
Republican-led states say they are sending migrants to “sanctuary” cities that welcome immigrants. While the definition of a sanctuary city is slippery, a sudden influx of migrants can test attitudes and limits of generosity.
Chicago's “Welcoming City Ordinance” prohibits asking people about their immigration status, denying services based on immigration status and disclosing information to federal immigration authorities.
New York limits cooperation with U.S. immigration authorities, partly by prohibiting police officers from participating in joint enforcement or by letting immigration agents work in city jails.
In Martha’s Vineyard, the six towns that make up the island south of Boston haven’t issued any “sanctuary” declarations.
The Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for restrictions, keeps an extensive list of “sanctuary” jurisdictions, which, by its definition, limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. They include Boston and seven other Massachusetts cities. None of the towns in Martha's Vineyard are on the list.
WHO'S PAYING AND HOW MUCH?
Texas has committed billions of dollars to Abbott's “Operation Lone Star,” an unprecedented move into border security that includes the bus trips, prosecuting border crossers for trespassing and massive presence of state troopers and National Guard.
The Florida Legislature allocated $12 million for its program for the current budget year.
The city of El Paso, which last week contracted a private bus company at a cost of up to $2 million, plans to seek reimbursement from the federal government.